A Little Crazy, A Lot of Fun! Tsunami Skydivers Celebrates 20 Years

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Monday, May 26, 2025

Above: Belize 2019. Photo by Bruno Brokken.

If you’ve had the good fortune to participate in a Tsunami Skydivers Exotic Boogie, you’ve undoubtedly heard these words from owner Rich Grimm: “Hey Guys! Guys, listen up. We are very far away from significant health care. You need to use all your skydiving skills and pull your strings!”

The adventure started 20 years and 32 boogies ago, when Grimm had the wild idea to skydive into the Great Blue Hole, a marine sinkhole 50 miles off the coast of Belize. The popular scuba-diving location (there are many species of tropical fish and even sharks inside) is a UNESCO World Heritage Site that’s banded by a ring of razor-sharp, protected coral. Needless to say, organizing the jump was a challenge. In 2005, after numerous scouting trips and meetings with local aviation officials, hotels, dive-boat operators, plane owners, riggers and wild-eyed skydivers, the first Tsunami Skydivers Exotic Boogie took place. 

During that first event, the participants became a family known as “the Tsunami Tribe.” Afterward, the tribe wanted more, and Grimm provided, organizing blue hole jumps annually from 2005-2011. Many participants describe jumping into the Great Blue Hole as “the single greatest skydive you’ll ever make,” since it includes an amazing view, an intentional water landing and getting picked up afterward by a dive boat.

Each One Unique

In 2011, Grimm joined forces with Peter Lawrence, a British expat and longtime resident of Ambergris Cay in Belize who had lots of local business and aviation connections, to help grow the boogie. In 2012, they hosted a boogie in Nicaragua, and shortly afterward, Lawrence’s assistance got even more valuable when Grimm got busy with opening a drop zone, Tsunami Skydivers of Oceanside, located near San Diego, California. He then took 2013 off from boogie organizing to get his DZ running.

Starting in 2014, he dove back into making Tsunami boogies happen. Over the years, he’s organized boogies in Costa Rica, the Maldives, Palau, the Seychelles and South Africa, with a few returns to Belize along the way. The Tsunami boogies include the opportunity to see amazing wildlife like howler monkeys, macaws and white-nosed coati (a raccoon cousin) in Costa Rica; lions, elephants, giraffes, rhinos, hippos and cape buffalo in South Africa; sting rays, hammerhead sharks, fish galore, and sea turtles in Palau, the Maldives and Belize; and 150-year-old tortoises in the Seychelles. And how often do you hear, “We’re on a hold due to an elephant in the landing area?” That happened while the Tsunami Tribe was jumping into Shamwari Private Game Reserve in South Africa.

In 2005, the year of the first Great Blue Hole event, Grimm married his wife, Kristine, at the Sun Breeze Hotel on Ambergris Cay in San Pedro, Belize. Over the years, the Tsunami boogies have attracted a lot of lovebirds. Many couples have gotten engaged at these events, and three couples have exchanged vows and said, “I do!” in front of their skydiving friends (usually at sunset on a gorgeous beach!) with the ceremony performed by a Tsunami member with all the rights and privileges to make it official.

At each event, participants give back to the local communities by donating school supplies, funding libraries and supporting local charities. They also perform demo jumps, which gives the jumpers a chance to meet, entertain and provide information about skydiving to local residents. These demos are extremely popular and draw large crowds.

Managing Logistics

Grimm begins planning each boogie by building relationships with the location’s co-host, as well as local aviation officials and businesses, to arrange the myriad details (hotels, fuel sources, meals etc.). He also assembles a dedicated support team to help make each boogie a success, including enlisting his family: his wife, Kristine, handles accounting; son, Alec, loads and fuels planes; and daughter, Morgan, runs social media.  Grimm focuses on safety and recruits the best people he can to help with ground control, manifest, rigging, packing, bus driving, safety-boat support, fuel-truck operating, aerial photography and world-class load organizing for all disciplines.

Arranging for lift power is also a challenge, as it takes trusting and adventurous plane owners to commit to bringing their aircraft to remote destinations. And then there’s the mind-boggling paperwork, often requiring flight plans and authorizations from officials of multiple countries. Take getting a Grand Caravan from Germany to fly jumpers in the Maldives: Along with all the paperwork, the plane needed an approved ferry tank to get barrels of fuel from Malé, the capital of the Maldives, to the boogie destination on Kooddoo Island.

For the Maldives Boogie, Tsunami Skydivers rented the entire Mercure Maldives Kooddoo Resort to accommodate three successive jump weeks (each one with a different focus for attendees). Tsunami also rented every single lodge at the Shamwari Private Game Reserve in the Eastern Cape of South Africa. Imagine the adjustment the staff at Shamwari made to accommodate 124 members of the Tsunami Tribe compared to their normal clientele! All of these arrangements require years of advance planning and coordination. When arranging for hotels, the managers sometimes hang up on Grimm or assume his email is a phishing scam, not believing someone wants to rent out all 74 rooms at a five-star location for 24 nights in a row!

A dedicated group of patient (and slightly crazy) skydivers, pilots, staff, friends and family have helped Grimm pull these boogies together. There have been some challenges along the way, and after every boogie, Grimm wonders whether “the juice is worth the squeeze.” But then he sees the new friendships, the old friends catching up and the absolute joy in people’s hearts, and he knows he’s given them memories that will last a lifetime. And when people ask him, “Why would someone go to a one-jump boogie at the Blue Hole in Belize?” he simply replies, “Why wouldn’t they?”

About the Author

Casey Pruett, D-37244, is an American who lives in Germany and jumps primarily at Skydive Flanders in Belgium and Skydive Empuriabrava in Spain. He has been jumping since 2011 and loves aerial photography, flying a wingsuit, being an AFF Instructor, attending exotic boogies (including eight Tsunami events) and making new skydiving friends wherever he goes. He is sponsored by Advanced Aerospace Designs Vigil, Atair Canopies, Larsen & Brusgaard, Modern Camera Solutions, Sun Path Products and Wynd Blocker.