Tuesday, August 15, 2006

Jump Off a Boathouse Will You?


There's a tradition over 50 years old at Cuba, New York's Cuba Lake, and that tradition is jumping off of Cottage #2's boathouse. It's kind of like cliff diving (pictured above) but much more difficult, as the water isn't deep enough to dive. The boathouse is the perfect height: not too high that you'll break your neck, but high enough to be exciting to the point of "Oh shit I can't do this I'll never survive" and then of course, you do.

Again, diving is not recommended-- but if you jump knowing that you may touch the bottom then you won't paralyze yourself. (Alright, most likely won't). You climb a huge rickety ladder up to the roof, and as you're looking over the edge, getting up the courage to jump, the hot tar shingles make the decision for you.

I hate rides and heights, and yet I've probably jumped 50 times since I was small. Sure, there was a lot of peer pressure involved. The youngest kid we know of to ever jump was 4 1/2, and the oldest kid 65. All it took for me to jump again after all these years was to hear that. The youngest to jump this year was my cousin's kid (my niece) Natalie, and she rocked it out 3 times!

Here are a few shots. Unfortunately, the chairs obstruct the view.





Shitty picture (because of course, I didn't take it) but here I am on the left side of my cousin. Tandem jump.

Makes you wonder who was possibly the first brave soul to make such a leap. Probably the same dude who climbed Mt. Everest or whatever.

I mean, it looks exactly like cliff diving, doesn't it?





2 comments:

Teri said...

it absolutely looks like cliff diving, scary. I need to learn how to swim......

Creepy said...

Almost as graceful as cliff diving.