Painting the Sky

Painting the Sky @ XP Up In Smoke by Dexter Marcelino

Update: Full event video with all our views can be seen here:

I attended “XP Up in Smoke”, which is a three day skydiving event at Skydive Paraclete XP in Raeford, NC during the Labor Day weekend.

The goal was to bring together really great freeflyers, and perform amazing jumps while wearing smoke grenades. However, stormy weather arrived after we had only made a few jumps on day one, and day two had very poor weather leaving us to be grounded yet again. We hoped that day three, our last possible day to jump during the event, would have fantastic weather that morning. Sadly, we sat at the dropzone staring at grey skies yet again. However, many of us sat determined to see it through to the end, and as afternoon approached, we saw the sun break free of the clouds and we could finally play in the sky.

Although mother nature had not been kind the past few days, the past rainy weather actually provided us with a beautiful backdrop of clouds. We strapped on our colored smoke grenades and ascended above the clouds with a mission to paint the sky. And on this day I had some of the most beautiful and memorable jumps of my life, and I wanted to share my POV with you. Please enjoy!