I have to blink a couple of times when my partner shows me the Facebook invitation.

It’s a skydiving boogie. Great – but that’s not why I’m startled. The rest of it fairly leaps off the page with personal resonance. Firstly, this particular boogie is going to be held in Panama, where my family and I lived for a few years when I was a scrappy, freckle-faced high-school student, 16 years ago. Not just any ol’ place in Panama, either: it’ll be based at a resort on Contadora Island.

Contadora is itty-bitty and almost entirely unknown outside the country, but the little blip of land means a lot to me – it’s where my mom and dad took my sister and I for a couple of long weekends, full of the kind of strolling and conversation that lasts a lifetime in one’s memory.

And the boogie's on my birthday.

The description mentions that it’s a little -- well -- technical. A D-license is required. There are some logistical hoops to jump through.

I don’t care. I can’t sign up fast enough.

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Several months later, I’m standing on a jungle-and-city-fringed causeway in Panama City with about 30 skydivers, most of whom I haven’t yet met.

We gather at the Balboa Yacht Club dock in the very early morning, our group dwarfed by piles of luggage. Skydiving rigs dangle casually from several pairs of shoulders as we shuffle down the long dock to the ferry waiting at the end.

Sitting blearily together in the white belly of the ferry, we check out the aerial map of the island. As I remember from my childhood, Contadora is tiny.

The single airstrip runs across the island’s entire width, beach to beach, describing a thin line within a green, fluffy jungle. The landing areas seem capacious enough for this group of lifers: we’ve been cleared to land anywhere within two and a half island beaches (one of them, rather hilariously, clothing-optional) and a bumpy patch snuggled up next to the runway. The latter is expressively named “Playa Fea”: “Ugly Beach”. It is; it's messy-looking and pimpled with femur-eater rocks. We’re warned that Contadora's wind socks are all positioned in small holes in the jungle, rendering them totally useless as anything but a perch for the island’s profusion of seabirds.

We’ve all been required to bring PFDs in case of a watery off-landing, but the fact is heavy in the air: if you miss the spot, you’re hooped. It's ocean out there. Big big ocean.

So, y'know. Don’t miss the spot.

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When we arrive at the island, the ferry chugs into the middle of an idyllic little sheltered cove. We wade through knee-high water from the ferry shuttle to the beach, our gear held high above the splashes. As we dig our toes into the sand and gape at the glassy water and sashaying palms, the organizers press us to drop our bags at the hotel and join up at the main landing area for an orientation.

As my golf cart rolls up to the main landing area, I’m suddenly drenched in memories. I know this place. 

 

Continued in Part 2 >>