Jumping Off a 91-Foot Cliff in Croatia: the first 90 feet were great!

Date: August 10, 2008
Location: Dubrovnik, Croatia
Lat: 42° 40.0N Long: 018° 4.7E

Wow, what a long and strange three days. There’s so much to talk about for this port. The last one has sure been a trip.

I suppose I can add some general observations here. Croatia is an absolutely beautiful place. I don’t know about the interior of the country, but Dubrovnik is a gorgeous town. The buildings are beautiful, there are these white houses built into cliffs with red roofs, it looks a bit like California. There are plenty of winding roads. The Croats are friendly people who aim to please. I would be happy coming back here.

Dubrovnik was a bit different for us as it was our first port with tender boats. This means that the good ship M/V Explorer wasn’t docked at the port. Instead we were anchored in the harbor and had to take 90 person ferry boats to the dock. These were done in on the hour and half hour so one could get ashore pretty easily. However, one would turn into a pumpkin at 0200 because that’s when the boats stopped running so the poor soul would be stranded if they didn’t make the boat. It was never a problem for me, but some of my friends got stranded.

Dubrovnik has a very interesting composition. It is comprised of both an old town, and naturally, a new town. The old town is absolutely gorgeous; it has cobblestone streets and stone buildings. It is all surrounded be a beautiful stone wall. The water is a most beautiful shade of blue.

The new town is also very nice. I didn’t spend much time in it. However, it seems a bit like California with the whitewashed buildings and red tile roofs. Everything is most beautiful here.

We all quickly went ashore with our things to check out our beach house. After a short bus ride we met up with the guy who was running the house. It turns out that our small group was actually part of three larger groups of SASers so it was around 30 people who were ultimately convoying together. We eventually made it to the house; however, there was no beach even close. It turns out that the group would be split into two groups. The guys would be in one house, the girls in the other. This was news to us but we made do. Our house was within the walled city of Dubrovnik, more or less, old town Dubrovnik. I’ve heard the other house had an amazing view overlooking the water.

After we had this settled we put our swim trunks on and we went out to find a beach. We found one that was off the harbor. There wasn’t actually a beach here, just rocks. However, there were some nice 15 feet jumps off the rocks into the water. This was a lot of fun.

After we were done with this, we headed out for some lunch. We found an absolutely delicious pizza place. The pizza’s were Neapolitan style and quite tasty. I had one with cheese and prosciutto, it was very good.

Once we had finished eating we heard that there was an actual beach right outside of the walled city. The beach was real lovely, not least because there were some topless ladies there as well. The water was nice and comfortable in the hot sun. We relaxed here for a while and sampled some of the local beers. This was a most excellent, enjoyable time.

While we were on the beach we heard about a cliff jumping opportunity from some friends. Apparently there were 91 foot tall cliff jumps. The funny thing is that the way to find the jumps was that they were at a bar. The way to find this was that the signs said “Cold Drinks and Great Views.” I decided that the best way to find this was to keep going up and up stairs.

While we were heading to the cliffs I stopped by a bar since some of my friends needed to go to the bathroom. I saw a little bit of the Olympic opening ceremonies. I suppose I should mention that I actually only saw a brief snippet. Apparently, Yao Ming was the flag bearer for China. I feel a bit detached from the Olympics. Pretty much the only way to get updates on the sports is by reading Wikipedia. Oh well, it is part of the Semester at Sea experience I guess.

We eventually found the cliffs. Some other SASers were already there so we felt pretty good about things. There are two possible jumping points, a 45-footer and a 91-footer. Our team unanimously decided to do the 91-footer.

One of my friends jumped first. He said that it hurt but he was fine. This made me feel pretty good since I was up next. I looked over, a bit nervous but I was confident. I then jumped. What happens next is a bit hazy. Apparently after I jumped I was looking down at the water. This therefore caused me to pitch a bit forward. My body hit the water first and then my head impacted the water at a considerable speed. I was knocked unconscious. The bartender at the bar ran down to the 45 foot dive and jumped in after me. They also called an ambulance.

The next thing I remember I was up near the bar area talking to people. Apparently what happened was that when I hit the water I was knocked out and received a concussion. I was then floating face down for a very short time. Swimmers quickly swam to me and dragged me to the landing. From there I regained consciousness and slowly walked up to the bar area. I had friends both in front of me and behind me to make sure I was ok. I managed to walk fine on my own. After all this, they realized that the ambulance probably wasn’t necessary

I apparently bit down hard on my lip, causing it to swell considerably. I was given some ice to suck on to reduce the swelling on my lip. I was still totally dazed at this point. I was led by some of my friends to the buses, which I took back to the landing. I then got on one of the tender boats back to the ship.

One of my friends called up the ship doc from the phone by the purser’s desk. My friend explained what was going on with me and the doctor came in around 35 minutes. Apparently he had just sat down to dinner, plus the tender boats make things difficult too.

He started examining me. I suppose he did all the standard concussion tests. He checked if my pupils dilated and if I could stand straight. He also checked my muscle response and things of that nature. After talking to me he said that I should be ok in a few days with some water and bed rest.

I spent the rest of the day and night on the ship. I drifted in and out of sleep. I also had a considerable neck ache and bruises. It wasn’t my best night of sleep to say the least. I stayed on the ship most of the next day. I grabbed some lunch and called home. I had emailed them earlier telling them about what had befallen me. Clearly they were worried. After letting them know that I wasn’t dead, I decided that I was wasting both my time and money staying on the ship.

I headed back to Dubrovnik despite a considerable headache and a other pains. I purchased a bus ticket and started my quest to reunite with my friends. I had some initial problems. The buses hadn’t come for awhile so I decided to walk to Dubrovnik. I got turned around and decided to take the bus since I knew any bus with a 1 (buses 1, 1A, and 1B) would get me downtown.

Unfortunately I happened to take a bus that was going the long way. This resulted in around a 45 minute bus ride. I got to see a lot of small-town Croatia. After this long winding journey I eventually made it to the walled city. I looked all around the walled city and couldn’t find my crew. I then decided to check our apartment. They weren’t there. I then moved to the beach where we started yesterday. Luckily I found my crew and we were reunited. They were all happy to see me and justly concerned about my health. I was really loopy yesterday.

We hung out on the beach for a while and then headed back to the apartment. We got dinner and then returned to relax at our place for a bit. All of my friends started drinking liquor and liter beers; I passed on it because the Doc told me not to, not to mention it already felt like I had a hell of a hangover as is because of the concussion. After channel surfing through Croat TV and coming up empty, we all decided to head out to a beach front club.

This would have been a ton of fun if I hadn’t had a concussion and had been drinking. Unfortunately, neither of those criteria was met. The club was a private hell for me. The flashing lights and pumping noise set my wrecked brain on fire. I mostly hung out on the beach and away from the flashing lights and painfully loud music. After around 4 hours of this torture, I decided to assemble my crew and get us back to our apartment. I was the only one with the key since I was the designated walker and navigator it was up to me to get us moving.

We made it back and piled into the beds. I woke up feeling pretty bad; I suppose strobe lights and loud euro pop techno don’t help the ailing head very much. I handed my key off to a friend of mine, gathered my things and hightailed it out of there. I got a bus back; thankfully it was far more direct this time. I got back to the dock and boarded a tender boat and got back to the M/V Explorer, leaving Europe.

I relaxed onboard the rest of the day, avoiding loud noises and flashing lights. Apparently I’m something of a legend on the ship since most people have heard that someone got knocked out. Even the executive dean’s heard of my problems. Usually when I tell people why my Croatian experience wasn’t the time of my life, they mention that they heard about something like that happening. It makes life interesting and at least I wasn’t seriously hurt.

Hopefully I’ll feel better tomorrow. I sure hope so because we have classes for the next couple of days and then finals. This is not the ideal time for a busted head. Hopefully I’ll be fine soon. The pain comes and goes, I don’t think it will be here for too much longer. I’ll be able to manage, it’s just pain.