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Cliff diving isn’t for everybody to try, however it positive is enjoyable to look at the professionals do it. The death-defying leaps, flips, and twists from towering clifftops and rock ledges belong to one of many oldest excessive sports activities on the planet. The truth is, cliff divers are featured in Greek and Etruscan work relationship again to the fifth and sixth centuries B.C.
Quick ahead to the twenty first century: Cliff-diving daredevils, often expert locals educated in carrying on this athletic legacy, might be discovered performing for vacationers in places all over the world. Should you’d wish to see it for your self, listed below are a number of locations the place you possibly can witness these courageous or loopy (take your decide) athletes dive from nice heights which are usually quadruple the peak of the Olympic video games’ tallest diving platform, which is 10 meters excessive.
RELATED: Prime 10 locations for adrenaline junkies
Highest peak: 135 toes (41 meters)
Elvis helped to make the La Quebrada Cliff Divers well-known. The jumpers had been featured in his 1963 musical, “Enjoyable in Acapulco,” and vacationers have been flocking to see them ever since. They carry out a number of instances every day, scaling the steep rocks of the La Quebrada cliffs with their naked fingers earlier than leaping right into a mere 12 toes of ocean water under at a speeds of as much as 55 miles per hour. There’s an statement deck to witness this must-see spectacle, and divers sometimes come to greet guests afterward and obtain suggestions. For the perfect vantage level, nonetheless, head to La Perla restaurant on the Lodge Mirador Acapulco, which boasts spectacular views.
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Highest peak: 92 toes (28 meters)
The fjord on this city on the Amalfi Coast offers a pure springboard for cliff-diving athletes. Every July, it hosts a Mediterranean high-diving championship—an occasion greatest considered by hiring a ship or becoming a member of a water-based tour. Afterward, you possibly can recount the insane acrobatics over an Italian feast and loads of native limoncello.
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Highest peak: 89 toes (27 meters)
Leaping off the Outdated Bridge (Stari Most) in Mostar dates again to no less than 1664. That’s when 16-year-old boys had been inspired to leap from the bridge with no consideration of passage into manhood. Should you didn’t leap, your life was predicted to be a failure. (How’s that for motivation?) Right now, members of the Mostar Diving Membership usually leap from the bridge into the freezing waters under. Guests who’re feeling courageous can join with the dive college, which is run by dive consultants who’re thought of the guardians of the bridge. They’ll educate you easy methods to make the leap safely, at incrementally greater and better heights. Those that full the best dive stroll away with a certificates and a loopy story.
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Highest peak: 85 toes (26 meters)
This Medieval village is understood for greater than its gorgeous alpine surroundings and beautiful hikes. It’s residence to the World Excessive Diving Federation (WHDF), and its cliffs host the WHDF Cliff Diving World Tour every July. You’ll discover a number of the greatest cliff divers on the planet coaching right here.
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Highest peak: 50 toes (15 meters)
La Quebrada isn’t the one place in Mexico to seek out expert cliff divers. Mazatlan is residence to a cliff at an oceanside park, also referred to as El Clavadista (translation: “the diver”). The park is an simply accessible space to look at expert locals leap elegantly into the waters under. It’s been a convention because the mid-Nineteen Fifties, and suggestions from spectators are appreciated. Although the peak of the Mazatlan cliff is nowhere close to as intimidating as La Quebrada, the self-love of the water actually is: It’s solely 6 toes. Divers have to carry out with excessive precision to make the leaps right here.
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Highest peak: 35 toes (10.5 meters)
With slightly little bit of liquid braveness, you could be impressed to make the leap with locals. Rick’s Cafe in Negril is a must-visit spot at sundown for a number of drinks and an acrobatic present. Whereas most sun-burned vacationers (fairly hilariously) cannonball dive off the 35-foot cliff upon which this legendary bar is perched, the locals will wow you with extra spectacular acrobatic dives into the Caribbean waters under.
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Highest peak: 30 toes (9 meters)
The Sheraton Maui Resort & Spa has maintained a convention since its opening in 1963: the ceremonial cliff dive from Pu’u Keka’a, also referred to as Black Rock. The ritual takes place every evening at sundown, accompanied by reside music and guided historic narration. The dramatic lele kawa (cliff diving) honors the legend of the final chief of Maui, who leapt from sacred Pu’u Keka’a into the Pacific. With Hawaiian chanting and torches lighting the best way, a younger diver retraces the chief’s footsteps to the summit earlier than making a breath-taking dive into the ocean under.
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Highest peak: 60 toes (18 meters)
Cliff diving in Dubrovnik, Croatia
Within the walled metropolis of Dubrovnik, recognizing Sport of Thrones filming places isn’t the one thrill guests will discover. Simply outdoors the town’s thirteenth century partitions on the ocean aspect, you’ll discover Buza Bar, a well-liked outside consuming institution constructed into the aspect of dramatic cliffs. Under the bar is Buza Seashore, which isn’t a lot of a seaside in any respect however relatively a set of cliffs and small platforms the place locals and vacationers alike check their may by leaping about 60 toes into the Adriatic Sea under.
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Go away it to energy-drink model Purple Bull to sponsor the world sequence for this high-risk, high-adrenaline excessive sport that makes the Olympic diving platform appear to be baby’s play. Competitions are held at cities, cities and villages all over the world every year, dazzling spectators who can solely think about what it’s wish to dive from such insane heights. Plan to be one in all them—one of many spectators, that’s—by checking Purple Bull’s Cliff Diving World Collection web site for updates on the place competitions will likely be held. Eire, France, Norway, Azerbaijan—these are simply a number of the nations which have hosted competitions that sometimes run from June to October.
Tagged: Caribbean, Europe, Italy, Jamaica, Mexico, Switzerland
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