Article: Viviana De Jesus Photos Scotty Burns and Matt Hoover
A Caribbean Carnival was the theme of 7th Puerto Rico Freefall Festival and Xtreme Divers knows how to make a Skydiving Boogie be turned into a Carnival. On the first day, organizers Viviana De Jesus and Jason Gonzalez received 214 participants. From that point, pilot’s Rook Nelson and Dave Schwartz, started the engine of the two Super Otter and immediately started flying jumpers to 13,500’ non-stop. By Wednesday night, the jumpers attended the welcoming party at Salitre Restaurant were the carnival would get started. Boogie organizers kept everyone in the air, learning and making great skydives. Freefly organizers, Luis Prinetto, Amy Chmelecki and James Tranter put together some tracking jumps and head down formation. As Amy said, “The PR boogie had a true vacation vibe. The weather was perfect. Everyone was jumping in shorts and t-shirts. The airplane door was open from 1500 feet until jump run. We were jumping over the beach! Everyone was laid back and having a great time. When the winds picked up for some people, they just smiled and went to the beach until the winds went down. That was the best part about the boogie. There was so much to do if you were not jumping. There was something for everyone to do.” RW organizers Guy Wright and Tom Schroder kept the novice and old jumpers jumping with two attempts to break the Caribbean record. According to Tom, “The belly-flyer organizers made plenty of skydives with groups of intermediate and advanced jumpers ranging from 5-ways to an unsuccessful Puerto Rico record attempt of 23. A 20-way sunset "Puerto Rico" star formation onto the beach built cleanly with only one jumper out. Lots of multipoint 8 and 10 ways were completed over the weekend.” Wing suit organizers Scott Bland, Justin Schorb and Jeff Nebelkopf doing Tony Suits Wingsuit first instruction jumps kept all skydivers jumping and safe. This year’s Scott’s comments were “In most skydiving disciplines, you have precious few moments to appreciate what it is that you're doing and where it is that you're doing it. But the 7th annual Puerto Rico Freefall Festival was, once again, a wingsuiters paradise. Gliding our bodies up the windswept beaches, the brilliant sun reflecting off the azure Caribbean waters below; flying a 5 person formation past a CRW group, seeing clouds flow past with the north coast of Puerto Rico in the distance; watching the entire group turn their heads to look as a flyer whoops in joy above them … these are the images that will stay in our memories for a lifetime. We came, we flocked, and we drank life from a fire hose. Our group grew to about 35 wingsuiters this year … to those flyers that joined us again, thanks for coming. To those flyers that joined us for the first time, it was great to meet our new best friends. To those of you, who’ve never flown with us, plan to be here next year … we’ll save a slot in the flock for you!” Every night, Xtreme Divers had a different activity making the Boogie a complete event. The boogie concluded with some great skydives, a total of 366 participants, 4,216 slots and 197 loads flown. We thank our staff, vendors and our sponsors for all the hard work in making this event happened and invites everyone to our next year’s event, February 10th -14th, 2010.
A Caribbean Carnival was the theme of 7th Puerto Rico Freefall Festival and Xtreme Divers knows how to make a Skydiving Boogie be turned into a Carnival. On the first day, organizers Viviana De Jesus and Jason Gonzalez received 214 participants. From that point, pilot’s Rook Nelson and Dave Schwartz, started the engine of the two Super Otter and immediately started flying jumpers to 13,500’ non-stop. By Wednesday night, the jumpers attended the welcoming party at Salitre Restaurant were the carnival would get started. Boogie organizers kept everyone in the air, learning and making great skydives. Freefly organizers, Luis Prinetto, Amy Chmelecki and James Tranter put together some tracking jumps and head down formation. As Amy said, “The PR boogie had a true vacation vibe. The weather was perfect. Everyone was jumping in shorts and t-shirts. The airplane door was open from 1500 feet until jump run. We were jumping over the beach! Everyone was laid back and having a great time. When the winds picked up for some people, they just smiled and went to the beach until the winds went down. 
That was the best part about the boogie. 
There was so much to do if you were not jumping. There was something for everyone to do.” RW organizers Guy Wright and Tom Schroder kept the novice and old jumpers jumping with two attempts to break the Caribbean record. According to Tom, “The belly-flyer organizers made plenty of skydives with groups of intermediate and advanced jumpers ranging from 5-ways to an unsuccessful Puerto Rico record attempt of 23. A 20-way sunset "Puerto Rico" star formation onto the beach built cleanly with only one jumper out. Lots of multipoint 8 and 10 ways were completed over the weekend.” Wing suit organizers Scott Bland, Justin Schorb and Jeff Nebelkopf doing Tony Suits Wingsuit first instruction jumps kept all skydivers jumping and safe. This year’s Scott’s comments were “In most skydiving disciplines, you have precious few moments to appreciate what it is that you're doing and where it is that you're doing it. But the 7th annual Puerto Rico Freefall Festival was, once again, a wingsuiters paradise. Gliding our bodies up the windswept beaches, the brilliant sun reflecting off the azure Caribbean waters below; flying a 5 person formation past a CRW group, seeing clouds flow past with the north coast of Puerto Rico in the distance; watching the entire group turn their heads to look as a flyer whoops in joy above them … these are the images that will stay in our memories for a lifetime. We came, we flocked, and we drank life from a fire hose. Our group grew to about 35 wingsuiters this year … t
o those flyers that joined us again, thanks for coming. To those flyers that joined us for the first time, it was great to meet our new best friends. To those of you, who’ve never flown with us, plan to be here next year … we’ll save a slot in the flock for you!” Every night, Xtreme Divers had a different activity making the Boogie a complete event. The boogie concluded with some great skydives, a total of 366 participants, 4,216 slots and 197 loads flown. We thank our staff, vendors and our sponsors for all the hard work in making this event happened and invites everyone to our next year’s event, February 10th -14th, 2010.