mbenadiba

There is really not much to say about this drop zone. Paradive, Located in Habonim Beach in Israel, which is on the Mediterranean Sea, is likely one of the most beautiful Drop Zones in the world. The scenery is absolutely incredible, except this fact has gone completely to the heads of the entire Drop Zone and the staff. If you want to do a Tandem, this is definitely one of the most beautiful places to do it at. Too bad that once you get hooked, you’ll have to find some other place to go through a student progression. They absolutely have no time for Fun Jumpers. Even if they did, their Landing Area is extremely small and borderline dangerous. The location is also very difficult to get to, it is not off of a main Highway, you have to exit and then double back for several kilometers, and, there really is no easy way to GPS this location except for going to Habonim Beach. Google Maps will lead you through a closed-down Dirt road. As a fun Jumper, I offered to pay a tandem load (hey the views are breathtaking) but they also would not even hear of it, and they told me that with “150 jumps and a B-License, you are a beginner skydiver and dangerous in the sky, we didn’t train you, we can’t take responsibly” – I thought this description was a bit of an exaggeration, given the many other drop zones I’ve been to with fewer jumps who didn’t have a problem. All of this was just because they simply only want to drop tandems and camera men out of the sky.

SkyKef, located on the Be'er Sheva Airport near the city of Be'er Sheva is the only DropZone in Israel which offers a professional and welcoming experience to international fun jumpers and local jumpers alike. I drove there from the heart of Tel Aviv and the entire trip took me about 1 hour. I had two Jump days in Israel during my visit, and I am sorry to say that I wasted one of them at PARADIVE which is the only other Drop Zone in israel. PARADIVE literally turned me away, but SkyKef welcomed me with an extremely professional and gracious attitude. The DZO, who is a brand new change is a very experienced skydiver and operator, and has in a short time created a very positive environment for staff and customers. She introduced herself to me and immediately took the time to check over some basic safety items (such as my log book, reserve repack and license.) After that, she wished me a fun day and sent me off for my first load. I arrived there around 11:00am, and stayed until the Sunset load. I got 4 amazing Jumps in, although if I pushed it a bit harder I could have gotten in 6. All of my jumps were with other Fun Jumpers who were local Israeli citizens, or staff members who did fun jumps in between work jumps. The local fun jumpers were very friendly as was the staff. They had several Packers available for the entire day, as well as an on-site rigger who introduced himself after noticing that I was a new face. He also asked to check out my reserve repack date, which impressed me a lot. After I told him who already inspected it, he was completely cool. They are serious about safety but they absolutely do not give anybody a hard time. Its really a bigtime fun but safe environment. They had a great lunch facility with various freshly made items and a full stock of drinks. They also have great washroom facilities, definitely a place where you could spend the entire day. They also have free WiFi which is accessible from almost anywhere including the office, packing area, picnic tables, breakout rooms and restaurant. They also have a great class room setup with a few large screen TV’s complete with HDMI mini, Component, Composite and various other connectors for viewing camera footage. Most of the loads consisted of 3-5 Tandems with at least 2-5 Fun jumper slots. Near the end of the day, the loads were almost entirely fun jumpers. All in all, I’d definitely come back to this DZ. It has the feel of a large scale, professionally run world-class drop zone.