Add soaring through the air with a water-propelled jetpack to the long list of recreational activities available in Mission Bay. Jetpack America offers an experience unlike any other.

Hovering high above the water gives a different perspective to Mission Bay. The feeling is foreign at first, but quickly becomes exciting. As the water pressure explodes out of the jets, participants experience weightless flight as they float higher and higher. A flight session, which starts at $159 for a 15-minute flight, begins with a brief instruction video and the Jetlev R200 equipment orientation. After that, it’s into a wetsuit, life vest and helmet. That’s also about when the nerves start to kick in.

No amount of athletic ability can prepare a participant for the first time they strap into the buoyant 30-pound, carbon-fiber jetpack harness and wade into the water. For the first flight, an on-shore instructor controls the throttle and offers advice through a helmet headset radio, but turning, maintaining height and moving forward is left to the participant.

Two control arms adjust the angle of the jets, which are propelled by water pumping through a 30-foot hose attached to a 200 horsepower, four-stroke-engine boat unit.

The trick is making gentle adjustments and keeping the control arms aligned. Uneven adjustments cause sharp turns and can send the flyer dangerously close to the boat unit below. But the instructor and a kill switch strapped to the participant’s wrist can immediately shut off the engine. A shut-off from high up can make for an entertaining splash-landing for those on shore.

It’s unnatural at first. Most people don’t fly around on jetpacks. But after a few minutes of becoming comfortable with turning and moving on the water’s surface, it becomes easier. There’s a tendency to white-knuckle the grips while gaining height, but smooth, relaxed adjustments really are the key.

The instructor explains how to increase and maintain height and, with a little practice, people are 10 feet in the air and flying with no hands.

While floundering in the shallows, it can be hard to imagine that people start soaring over the bay early in their first session, but Jetpack America president and co-owner Dean O’Malley said most people tend to get the hang of it quickly.

“That’s one of the things we try to emphasize, how accessible it really is,” O’Malley said. “We’ve had customers from age 16 up to 85. We had three deaf customers who flew with us. We had an amputee. We’ve had a quadriplegic that we flew. It really is one of those things that if you give it a fair shot, in five minutes, maybe 10 minutes, we can have you flying. We’ve had a 95 percent success rate of getting first-time people up and flying.”

O’Malley said the activity took off when Jetpack America CEO John Morris partnered with the manufacturer, Jetlev, and offered the first customer flights in Newport Beach in August 2011. Since then, the company has expanded to Honolulu and San Diego.

“We’ve probably flown close to 5,000 people,” O’Malley said. “It’s definitely growing quickly, and we’ve taken a lot of people out to experience what it’s all about.”

The concept was developed by inventor Raymond Li in 2001. The inspiration — not surprisingly —came from a James Bond film.

“It was James Bond movie ‘Thunderball,’” O’Malley said. “He saw the jetpack in that movie and he was blown away by it. It stuck in his head and he always wanted to figure out a way to make that work and make that a reality.”

O’Malley said it became a reality when Li decided to abandon traditional jetpack designs and develop a jetpack powered by water pressure. The constant flow of water not only allows for longer flight times, but also makes it safer.

“If something goes wrong and you drop in the water, it’s not going to be life threatening, O’Malley said. “It truly does make it a recreational jetpack that anyone can come out and try. We’ll have splashdowns, people will come crashing down a little bit, but it’s all part of the learning process.”

Jetpack America’s Mission Bay flight center opened April 6, but the team has been working since last fall to ensure everything will run smoothly with a trained staff in time for summer.

O’Malley said he expects a rush in the summer as the majority of customers have really enjoyed the experience.

“It’s not a one-and-done activity. It does kind of get you addicted,” O’Malley said.

If someone becomes seriously addicted, he or she could purchase a jetpack for $68,500, but Jetpack America does have some more affordable options to continue flying. It offers monthly memberships, returning pilot discounts and group rentals.

If a customer buys the video package and achieves more than 200 views on Youtube, he or she gets a free flight.

Jetpack America is located in the Mission Bay Sportcenter at 1010 Santa Clara Place. For more information, visit www.jetpackamerica.com.

– To see video footage of Ethan Orenstein's high-flying experience, visit http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iA1YnkxbOmk.

As the weather and water warm, people come from all over to visit the beach. The increase in beachgoers puts lifeguards on high alert for all types of medical emergencies. San Diego Lifeguard Services sergeant and union spokesperson Ed Harris said San Diego lifeguards are good at spotting emergencies and capable of treating all types of medical situations, but the massive crowds make it harder during the hot summer months. “The more crowded it is, the more challenging it becomes for us to spot people in distress,” Harris said. “As it gets more and more crowded, more things happen. So when you talk about medical aid especially, everything that happens to humans happens on the beach.” Many emergencies have nothing to do with the water or sea life. Harris said every year lifeguards make a few cardiac-arrest saves, which is why each lifeguard vehicle is equipped with shock devices. “We literally have millions of people going to the beach every year. We deal with a wide range of medical aid, everything from seizures to strokes. In fact, people have babies on the beach,” Harris said. In the water, lifeguards deal with everything from rip currents to stingray stings. Harris said rip currents are of biggest concern in the spring, after heavy winter surf digs holes in the sand. Harris said the rip currents tend to ease throughout the summer as the holes are filled in by south swells. During the winter, Harris said more experienced people are in the water and — whether it’s big surf or a medical emergency — rescues are serious. “In the summertime it’s just the volume. It’s more the standard rip-current rescues. Due to the numbers, you get more often people going to dive into the water and hit their head on the bottom. They’re not as experienced,” Harris said. “We get it all the time. We get people that take surfboards to the head or they cut their leg with the fin of the board, or run into each other or over each other.” As the water warms, stingrays come closer to shore and stings become a common injury too. “It’s not uncommon for us to have a couple a day, but I’m sure you’ve seen in the past where we have people lined up in buckets all the way out the door, and we could do a hundred in a day or 50 in a day,” Harris said. While many medical emergencies at the beach are handled by lifeguards, who are all emergency medical technicians, San Diego Fire-Rescue medics are called for more serious emergencies. “Fortunately for us, San Diego Fire has a very good medic program,” Harris said. “Medics are always pretty close for us. We get medics on the scene usually within five minutes.” For low-level issues — like a wound that requires stitches or a sprain — Harris said lifeguards direct people to local hospitals and urgent-care facilities. Anderson Medical Center, located at 1945 Garnet Ave., is one urgent-care facility with a lead physician who has more than 20 years of treating beach-related injuries — be it surfing injury or sea-life-inflicted wound. With a background in sports medicine and as SeaWorld’s medical director, Dr. Ken Anderson has treated everything from surfers with dislocated shoulders and fin cuts to animal trainers with stingray stings and seal bites. “I got a call from University of San Diego the other week because they had a student who had been bitten by a seal, and they were like, ‘What do we do with this?’” he said. “So we talked about that type of thing. It’s a different type of thing to be exposed to, but I have developed experience with that over the years.” A physician with experience like that is invaluable to the beach community, especially in the summer. “A big focus of ours is urgent care and open access,” Anderson said. “That’s why we have the extended hours and why we don’t make appointments. It’s because we want to take care of injuries and minor emergencies, and we do very well at that.”

“Every year, it seems like we have less to clean up,” said Adam Meyer, reflecting on a recent graffiti cleanup event in Pacific Beach. “That’s how we know it’s working. This year, we had 75 volunteers and we wiped out 1,042 graffiti ‘tags.’ For comparison, back in 2010 we cleaned, removed or covered up more than 1,300 of them.” Meyer is vice president of the Pacific Beach Town Council. For the last six years, the council and the PB Presbyterian Church have joined forces for the Graffiti Cleanup Day. Teams of volunteers met April 27 at the church, where they received a bucket full of supplies to remove paint, stickers and marking pen ink. Each team got training on how to remove or cover up graffiti and stickers. “We couldn’t have done it without Motsenbocker’s Lift Off,” Meyer said. “They’re a San Diego company, and Gregg Motsenbocker lives in PB. The company makes environmentally safe products for removing graffiti and stickers.” Meyer said the group also got donations of gear from other businesses, as well as cash donations from residents. Town Council member Marcie Beckett put things in perspective. “Getting rid of graffiti in our community is not just a matter of pride,” said Beckett. “Research shows that when the appearance of a neighborhood declines, the behavior of people declines, as well. For example, when there’s more graffiti, there’s more litter, too.” The result of the annual event has been a reduction in graffiti, said organizers. Volunteers tend to clean up graffiti as soon as they see it, instead of waiting until the following year’s event. “[Students] learned how graffiti affects their neighborhood, and they take pride in how their neighborhood looks,” Beckett said. “That feeling of connection with their community means they’re less likely to litter or do any tagging themselves.” To report graffiti, call the city’s Graffiti Hotline at (619) 525-8522 or fill out a graffiti report online at www.sandiego.gov/graffiti/forms/sighting.shtml.