LAKE GENEVA, Wis. — There’s a new crop of mail boat jumpers joining the ranks this summer.
High school and college-aged applicants competed Wednesday morning for the coveted job jumping off and back onto tourist boats on Lake Geneva, but the catch is, the boat never stops.
“There’s definitely nothing like this. There’s definitely nothing you can really do to prepare for it, so you just have to kind of go for it and see what happens,” Molly McEneany said.
McEneany is a vet, jumping each summer for the last 3 1/2 years. She's completed more than 300 jumps — plunging into Lake Geneva only five times. Ava Pezza, on the other hand, has no experience, but she’s wanted to land this gig ever since she was a child.
“I really want to do this. I’ve always thought about it. I just think it would be really exciting to do,” Pezza said.
So, she jumped. Stuck the landing, and hopefully a summer job, too.
“(It was) very nerve-racking. The second (jump) was really far; you had to run so much. And you have to really commit to it,” Pezza said.
“There’s definitely nothing like this. There’s definitely nothing you can really do to prepare for it, so you just have to kind of go for it and see what happens.” — Molly McEneany
Outfitted in life jackets before each jump, the mail jumpers deliver the mail to lake homes, jumping off and back on the non-stopping Lake Geneva Cruise Line tourist boat. They narrate the tour for part of the trip, and jump the rest, trying their best not to fall in.
