Skydiving for over 30 years Robbie has a passion for anything that flies. A pilot with over 5000 hours and a skydiver with over 20,000 jumps, including more than 7,000 Tandem Skydives, Robbie is still an active and happy skydiver today. Along with his wife, he plays an active roll in running the operations in their family business and skydiving with his customers.

His life in flight began as a young child when he flew around with his Dad in South Africa. His father was not only a pilot, he also built his own plane, a BEDE4. Hardly big enough to look over the dashboard of that plane, flying around with his Dad are some of Robbie’s earliest memories. At the age of 6 Robbie discovered the World of Skydiving; the World’s first skydiving club in Pietermaritzburg, due to his Dad’s involvement with the club as a pilot. Robbie spent several years building his jump fund by working at the club as a packer until he turned 16. On his 16 th birthday he made his first skydive, a static line round
jump. He loved it and was hooked, it was everything he dreamed it would be and more.

He was scared to jump but he loved to jump. Every time he did a jump in those early days, he would always promise himself that “this would be the last one” as he flew in the plane to the exit point. Once in the air, he was instantly reminded of why he loved it and would be ready to jump again, until the next ride up in the plane, when he would promise himself again, that “this would be the last one”.

Robbie went on to become part of the South African National 4-way competition team. He competed and won his Nationals and went on to represent South Africa in the World Meet. His first World Skydiving Competition was in Czechoslovakia in 1991. From there he went to England where he met Tanya, who much later became his wife. From England, Robbie went to America with his team where they continued to train and compete and take part in multiple national and international competitions. Using his skydiving skills, Robbie gained his Tandem Master rating, his AFF instructor rating, and worked as a coach for up and coming 4-way teams. His medal wins are too many to mention here, ask him when you see him, it’s a lot!

His passion to share this love of the sport with people inspired him to open a skydiving center of his own. His first operation was in Rhode Island, then in Cape Cod. He then went on to get his pilot’s license and started to fly skydiving planes, gaining most of his commercial pilot time flying multi engine turbine aircraft.

Moving to California to be with Tanya, Robbie decided that this was a great location to start a new drop-zone and so it was that Skydive West Coast came to life. It’s a growing business that he runs with his wife and loves to have his son help him with marketing ideas, learning to pack and other tasks that his son enjoys when he comes to visit.

Tanya met Robbie at the beginning of her skydiving career, although at the time she didn’t know it was going to be a career, with only 50 jumps, mostly on round parachutes and less than 10 jumps on a square parachute. Robbie was travelling to America as part of his countries National Team. Very much inspired by his positive attitude to life, his desire to travel and skydive Tanya and Robbie struck up a friendship that has lasted for almost 30 years. After Robbie left England to train in America, Tanya went about creating her own travel adventures and skydiving life. She moved to Israel in 1992 where she lived and worked on a Kibbutz for 6 months, traveled to Egypt to see the Pyramids, hitch hiked from Eilat to Ashkelon on her own, swam in the Dead Sea and then returned to England so that she could make some more skydives and travel to America.

Her first visit to America was paid for by packing round parachutes. 6 weeks in Zephyrhills FL and 100 jumps later, Tanya decided that becoming a senior parachute rigger would be her next skydiving goal. Later that same year, she packed her bags in England and toured France with a Sky-Van and packed enough parachutes to pay for skills training camps with Jeff Ronzvale, a previous member of the French National 4 Way team. She packed enough parachutes to pay for her first rig, her first AAD and another ticket to America. Having decided that Skydiving was her new life path, Tanya went on to be a part of the British Women’s Skydiving record with the lowest number of jumps on the team. She got her USA senior riggers ticket, her USA AFF rating with only 518 skydives, was the first female to build and jump her own wing suit.

While working in Zephyrhills as an AFF instructor and a load organizer, Tanya decided, after taking part and completing two World Record Night Skydives, (42 Way and 2-point 42 Way) she would have a go at making and setting her own World Record, an All Female night record. The event was a huge success and although the record was never officially recognized, a new record was set and thousands of people in the Tampa Bay area watched the event live on the local news. She then went into the manufacturing industry and worked as the Marketing Manager for one of the largest container manufacturing company in the World. It was in this role that Tanya was able to travel much of America, going to skydiving centers around the country to present the equipment, meet drop-zone owners and skydivers alike. She organized skydives, competed in various competitions and made many friends within the industry. Her positive energy, her passion for her sport and her love of life has made her a masterful instructor and a true ambassador of the sport.

After years of friendship with Robbie, they finally started dating and got married in 2017. They combined their love and passion for the sport with their experience and now run a friendly, family orientated skydiving operation.

Always learning and growing, Tanya has gone on to become an S&TA, (Safety and Training Advisor) a Tandem Instructor and Coach Examiner. Her knowledge of the sport, her willingness to adapt and grow with the evolution of skydiving have made her a valuable asset to Skydive West Coast as well as a positive role model for Females in skydiving.