July 4th, 2001
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We lived through skydiving... So cliffdiving is no big deal! It's
a much shorter fall, there's no plane, and no crazy parachute to deal with. (And you don't HAVE
to be strapped to someone to go over the edge.) It's the middle of the week, there's no work
to be done today and there's friends to take to a big rock and throw them off. Awesome.
The weather was gorgeous. It was a little warm at the top, but that just made the water at the bottom seem that much better. I had never been to this rock quarry before, so at first I was a little skeptical about jumping into unknown waters. But that lasted all of a few minutes when someone took their first fall into it. I couldn't pass it up. It's about 30 feet high, so just over 3 stories tall. You have a second or two in the air to realize you haven't landed yet. Alan brought out his camera and took some excellent shots. My camera still has some film in it, I'll get it developed soon. But in the meantime, here's some excellent shots.
Zen of diving:
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Now when you look at the photos, it doesn't seem like it's that far, but
when you're standing up there looking out, it's just a long ways down. Plus there's no easy way up.
The fastest way is to climb the rock face back up. There's other ways, but they involve swimming over
to the shoreline and hiking back to the top without shoes on. Climbing with wet hands is the key.
We ended up running into a few other groups that were out diving. One group brought out some rafts and even a small grill to cook on. It made for some good laughs as some of them tried to build up the courage to jump off. All of us went over at some point. Some of us just kept doing it again and again. Robbie and I went for the swan dive approach and Jon eventually came around to trying it. Alan got some awesome shots of the diving. It's really hard to see in the thumbnails, but you can click on the picture to get a full size view of them. Here's the run down of the shots.
Jumping order:
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More photos! These were taken with my camera from the top of the rock. These
let you see the fear in the eyes of the person getting ready to jump to their watery grave. Well, at least
that's what the expressions look like.
Most of these photos were taken on the same dive, so you can see how they started and how they ended up. The exception is the flying squirrel we call Robbie. Next time, we'll have to climb down the rock face a little and get the expression on Robbie's face as he's hanging upside down in the air. Breakfast: $5. Gas money needed to get to Wendel and back: $6. Not having your swimsuit rip you a new one when you enter the water: Priceless...
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Just another thing to add to the list of experiences here in Raleigh. Things
I would not have even known existed without some friends telling me about them. Just goes to show
that there are all sorts of things to do, you just have to know where to look.
After all of the diving and sun we could stand, we headed back to my place for some good cookout fun. Here's the parting shots.
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