As soon as we finished jumping at Skydive Nawlins, we packed up the car and I sent an email to Jeananne to let her know I was on my way. I am sure now you area asking...Who is Jeananne?  

Jeananne (A.K.A. "J') was the first person to make a donation through the new Pink Mafia Sisters website and to receive a free T-shirt!  She was very interested in becoming a Pink Mafia Sister, but there were no delegates at her drop zone.  The closest delegate was about four hours away.  When I told her that I would eventually be coming through her state, she decided to wait for me to do her initiation.  Before we left Virginia, I contacted Jeananne to tell her that I would be down her way and she decided to meet me at Gold Coast Skydivers (a five hour drive from her home).  We'd stayed in touch via email and everything was looking good to go.  

She quickly responded to the email I sent as we left Skydive Nawlins. She was already at Gold Coast!  I felt like we couldn't drive fast enough!  In addition to Jeananne, I was also excited to meet a few other Facebook friends in person.

When we arrived at Gold Coast, we unloaded the car and the looked around for experienced manifest.  One of the staff directed us to the office so we could complete our waivers.  The DZO gave us our waivers and asked one of the experienced jumpers to give us a drop zone briefing.  We were happy to hear they have a set landing pattern to avoid canopy confusion.  After we were finished with the business, I went to talk to Jeananne.

PMS DelegatesOn the way, I ran into Lizz.  I had met Lizz via Facebook and she knew that I was planning to stop by the DZ.  In fact, Lizz was nice enough to offer us a place to stay.  It was great to finally meet her in person. When I look at my Facebook "friends", it is amazing how many of them are people I've never met! I also had an opportunity to say hello to Celine (one of our Pink Mafia delegates) and another one of my Facebook "friends".  Celine has been a Pink Mafia Sister for as long as I have, but she only recently became a delegate.  Meeting Celine, made me more confident in our decision to select her as a delegate.  She's full of energy and enthusiastic! We snapped this picture together just before she had to leave. 

After I finished talking to Celine, I finally got to say hello to Jeananne.  I was surprised how tiny she is!  I'm nearly 5' 8" and she was about a foot shorter!  So beautiful and sweet!  Once we got past our hellos, it was time to talk about the initiation skydive.  I was surprised to discover that Jeananne only had 17 jumps!  Hmmmm...not even licensed.  I wasn't exactly sure how I was going to handle this initiation.  Jeananne was cleared for self-supervision, but without a license she couldn't go with just anyone.  Fortunately, Jeananne had an AFF instructor with her - Bill.  

After a short conversation, we agreed that Bill would come along on the jump.  I would hand Jeananne the Barbie and he would take it from her so she would not have to land with it or deal with it during deployment.  Since Jeananne, has two daughters, we decided that we needed three Barbies which meant I would be landing with two - if we didn't lose any of them during the skydive. Since it was still too windy for Jeananne to jump, we ended up doing a 4 way with Bill and another guy from the DZ.  I am sure Bill wanted to make sure that I had enough skill to safely skydive with Jeananne.  These are the times when I think it would be beneficial for me to get at least a coach rating.  Most of the time, I don't really need one, but it would allow me to jump with students

The jump went fine, but when I opened I was on the wrong side of the drop zone.  I really wanted to do a left handed pattern, but I didn't want to start out my visit by upsetting the locals.  I made my way into the landing pattern a little lower than usual and I wasn't 100% sure I'd make it over the beer line because the winds were pretty strong. Matt said he was watching me land and he was also wondering if I'd make it over the line.  Fortunately, I did!  

MississippiWoo hoo! Louisiana and Mississippi in the same day!  We took our rigs back to the hangar and tried to find a spot to pack.  It was pretty crowded, but I squeezed into a spot that someone was getting ready to vacate.  As I put my rig down, I felt someone tap me on the shoulder.  It was Phil - one of the guys that learned at Skydive Orange.  It was nice to see another familiar face.  He was working at Gold Coast and didn't really have much time to chat.  Before I started packing, I was thinking that Gold Coast was A++, but I quickly realized that the packing floor was very hard on my knees.  So, I can only say they are an A+ in my book - still pretty awesome!  We were thrilled to find lunch on site!  We ordered some food and waited for the winds to die down.