Around The World In 80 Waves

The Hotel Mirador where I am staying at overlooks the famous cliffs that locals have been hurling themselves off for years. I have to be honest in that I thought it would it would be little different to diving from the rocks and cliffs at Angel Bay near Llandudno where I grew up, which I did personally many times.

However it is breathtaking stuff because not only do they dive but they also add in somersaults, flips, etc.  of the quality that Tom Daley would be proud of.

You can just see the diver stood at the top of the cliff here in the spotlit show I watched, but also the streak at the bottom which was his mate who had just launched himself into the night sky. It should give you some idea of the scale, but also how far out it is necessary to hurl yourself.

Local diver Raoul Garcia was the most famous of them, having dived from the cliffs nearly 25,000 times. His skills were called upon by Hollywood many years ago when he was asked if he could dive from the Brooklyn Bridge in New York for the Johnny Weissmuller film ‘Tarzan’s New York Adventure’. He did it successfully but anybody who knows how high that is will find it hard to believe it is possible.

Things didn’t end well for Raoul though. He showed a little too much bravado in his seventies saying he could still do the dive even though he had not done it in more than 15 years. He was dead two weeks later!

The current bunch of nutters are always hanging about in the foyer of my hotel to keep warm.

However I do still think that going off the big rock at Angel Bay into a shoal of Mackerel swimming in the chilly waters of the Irish Sea would be an experience they are not ready for yet!