I was born and raised in South Africa. When I was 5, my mother put me on a steam train for a 3-day journey to an uncle's farm, the conductor watching over me all the while. It was then that the travel bug bit me, and I've been traveling ever since. I graduated high school in '66, then drafted into the military, volunteered for Airborne, and jumped from my first airplane at 17. At 19, I hopped on a ship to Europe and worked my way around for two years: offshore oil rigs North Sea, construction in Holland, movie extra in Spain... Emigrated to Australia in 1971, where I spent 18 months in the military, then worked iron-ore mines in NW Australia for three years. I started skydiving around then, and moved to California 1976. I started a tree business in Laguna Beach, living in Lake Elsinore on a drop zone until 1979. I moved back to South Africa and rejoined the Airborne Recon unit, where I saw combat as 60mm mortarman on a Unimog. I bought a boat, guiding deep sea fishing trips for a season, then spent three years as a contracts manager for a security outfit. I then sailed a 32 ft. gaff-rigged cutter across the South Atlantic via Brazil to Ft Lauderdale in 1985. In Florida, I qualified as a Skydiving Instructor in '86 and spent the next 16 years traveling throughout the U.S., teaching first-time jumpers with my wife Maria, also an Instructor. We met in Florida and married in 1992. We started our own Drop Zone in Colorado, then sold it in 2002 and moved to Lake of the Ozarks in Missouri for 4 years. Finally, we were finally drawn back to Zion because of all the awesome times we had experienced here on our travels through Utah. I cannot imagine leaving!!!