Published: Flamingo Magazine

Location: Vero Beach, Florida

“Are you ready? Because it’s too late to turn back now,” says Michael Hoover, 45, adjusting his sunglasses and erupting into an enormous grin as we turn onto the runway and the engines of his red and white six-passenger seaplane thrum. I grin back. I live for these kinds of thrills, and he surely senses that I’m relaxed and good to go.

I feel my shoulder blades push back into my seat and look back to the row behind me, where my Cuban-born husband, Javier,
has our five-month-old son, Nico, strapped to him in a baby carrier, the seatbelt tightly around them both.