
Notwithstanding that security concerns have been been keeping tourists away in droves, the cliff divers (La Quebrada (Spanish for “gulch” or “ravine”) still attract the crowds. I guess I must have been among one of the lucky ones stopping by Acapulco in a cruise ship in 2014, just five had made port calls that year of our arrival in November, compared to 180 cruise ships docked as recently as three years ago.
Watching the divers in real life was a bit nostalgic for me, I recalled the ABC Wide World of Sports coverage of the Acapulco cliff diving in my early years (1970’s). There’s lots of ritual and showmanship. The divers swim to the base of the cliff and climb up the rock faces to their diving ledges, the highest is 115 feet. At the top of the cliff, just meters from the upper ledge, the divers pray at the altar of the Virgin of Guadalupe. They have to time their dive with the rise and fall of the waves below, a varying depth between 6 to 16 feet, and mindful of the dive duration, about 3 seconds.
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