April 29, 2010 • 27 mins
As far as sports go, cliff diving doesn't require much equipment. It does, however, require a certain amount of chutzpah, a dash of derring-do, and a deep body of water to land in. Tune in and learn more about cliff diving in this podcast.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve Camray.
It's ready. Are you welcome to Stuff You Should Know
from House Stuff Works dot Com? Hey, and welcome to
the podcast. I'm Josh Clark. With me is Charles W.
Chuck Bryant were a couple of writers for how Stuff
(00:22):
Works dot Com. When we sit down in front of
these mics, though, to become stuff you should know, we
tear open our shirts and there's a big s y
s k on our chest tattooed. That's exactly right, Chuck, Chuck. Yes,
you ever jumped off a cliff? I have indeed, Yeah, yeah,
the Rock Quarry and Sparta. Do you ever go there? No,
(00:43):
I've jumped off of that one that was that was
pretty high. There's a rock Cory and Toledo that I
never went to. Actually it was in uh White House, Whitehall,
Bowling Green somewhere around there. I never went. My dad
was certified as a scoopa diver there though. Yeah. They
put something in a bus that was sunken at the
bottom of it. He had to go get it out
to prove that he could in fact scuba dive. Yeah,
(01:03):
it sounds creepy. Done that. Yeah, I myself have never
jumped off a cliff. I love it. Is it thrilling? Yeah,
it's fun. How high was it? I think I'm probably
overstating it, like everyone probably does when they do the
skinny thing, but it seemed like it was probably about
forty or fifty ft. Wow, it was high. Yeah, that
is high. And actually there's a place at the Chattahoochie that. Uh.
(01:25):
I used to do it too, but that was like, well, Chuck,
you have a hair your chest than I do, because
I've never jumped off a cliff, but I have been
to Acapoco before you got me there? Have you? Did
you read about these guys? Oh yeah, the the La
Cabrata diverse. I think it's nice that you bring that
(01:45):
extra acts. You don't have to bring an accent. And anyway,
that French dude email is this weekend. He said he
appreciated it. Yeah, He's like, I'm totally wrong, but he
thought it was funny. Yeah, so yeah, Brata, Yeah, it's
a it's pretty cool. These guys are jumping off of
the highest cliffs that anybody routinely jumps off of the world.
(02:05):
I did, Oh, I didn't know you actually witnessed the performance. Yeah,
I mean, you can't go to Acapoco and not see it.
I believe it's daily, um, except maybe Sundays, but I
could just be making that up. But the guys, Um,
they jump off something like I think a hundred and
forty eight foot cliffs. That's crazy. Yeah, which what is
that meters? Chuck, Josh, that would be about forty five Okay, nice,
(02:28):
thanks for that. You're just a walking calculator. You know
it's written right in front of me. Um. But this
is an enormous cliff. This is what a fourteen story
building isn't a story like ten feet? Yeah, so they're
jumping off of fourteen story buildings into waters. It's like
a little inlet and they're on one side and then
you're on the other with railing so you don't try
(02:50):
jumping off. And these guys just start jumping. There's like
ten fifteen of them. Wow, they do it every night.
And actually it was started by a thirteen old boy
back in Yeah, that's what I hear. And I will
pronounce his name as Enrique et Pakrios, very very nice. Um.
(03:10):
So this little boy started this tourist attraction, and what
has arguably become a one of the cooler extreme sports
as well. But the story goes back further than that, correct. Yeah,
But I just want to point out we're on the
fifte floor, so this is ballpark. Within about ten or
fifty out the window were wow, Yeah, that's high. Jerry's giggling.
(03:43):
She's either gonna cut that out or leave it in.
We'll find out, right, that is very high. That is
real high. Yeah. I mean we would have jumped onto
the street have we just jumped out? Plus it would
have been an extra ten ft. This is water, but
I'm telling you there's like bowlders at the bottom, there's
waves breaking. It's an inlet at the ocean, and that's
part of the trick is to time it with the
(04:03):
water coming in and out, and then obviously mind the
boulders and because you know, you clearly don't want to
like jump into a boulder. But what I also noticed
in this article that if you hit like a fish,
that could be bad news. Right yeah. Uh. And we'll
get into the physics of cliff diving soon. But like
I said, where where do we find the beginning? This
(04:24):
is one of those rare um pieces of um world culture.
Because everybody does it everywhere. Anywhere there's cliffs, there's cliff
divers pretty much. But this is one of those rare
pieces that you can go back and be like, this
guy actually started it. I don't think this is the
first guy. I would say, he's probably the first guy
in recorded history. Do you want to take his name? Yes,
(04:45):
I'm gonna go with the King kahikil of Hawaii. He
was the last king of Maui and in seventeen seventy
he reportedly jumped from cannot seats where I get in
trouble Calnolulu. I think it's pretty much how I would
(05:07):
in my in my head, I can pronounce it better
than that. But once it goes through the tongue, you
know what happens. That was about sixty three ft and
he uh entered the water, didn't make much of a splash.
So he earned the name Birdman and then apparently would
challenge his warriors to prove their bravery by doing the same. Right.
So that's where it started, at least that's what the
(05:28):
lower says. And I can imagine, you know, his people
calling him Birdman and him going, um no, it's uh
Kiley king Kay Kiley actually to you. Yeah, um, but yeah,
Actually every night at the Ratan Maui they reenact this thing.
They have some guy go up to the top of
a cliff and it's very cliff. He jumped off of
(05:51):
right in a loincloth and jump into the water. And
the reason he jumped into the water was because this
is where the uh the Maui's yeah right, Malian's sure. Uh.
They where they believed that souls transferred into the next
world through, yeah, the spirit world. And I guess he
was like, let's see what the hell happens, right, So
(06:12):
now they re enacted with the loincloth to dude, he
offers up in each direction to the sky, uh and
offering he has the lay and then a torch and
then he'll jump in right and uh when he jumped
in absolutely no one outside of the Greater Maui area
had a clue. But many years later, the cliff diving
(06:34):
concept really started to take off thanks to time X
and ABC Correct So time X. Back in the late fifties,
time makes used to like to um show off the
impact resistance that their watches could boast. Yeah, I remember
the and I was about to say, I remember this
one when I was remember when it first broadcast, so
(06:55):
clearly I didn't. But they ran this campaign through the
seventies because I remember the takes a look and keeps
on ticking things. That's right, Yeah, that's what that That
was the tagline. Right. So this commercial though they jumped in,
uh John Cameron Swayze what I don't think any relation
to Patrick. I was wondering the same thing. Actually, I
have to look that up. Uh he uh hosted this
(07:18):
commercial and they give a torture test. Right, No, he
didn't actually jump in, now, he was just like check
this guy out. And they had some cliff diver jump
in fist first with the time X like exposed, so
it was the first thing that hit the water, and
I imagined that after a few takes he eventually didn't
break the watch and they were like, look what happened.
(07:39):
So that was the late fifties and then really cliff
diving took off, if you'll excuse me, uh in I
think March nine. Yes, it took the leap in so bad.
With the A b C's Wide World of Sports, which
was a great concept. Man all over the place, they
(08:01):
show the craziest stuff. This is long before anybody ever
thought of the X Games or anything like that. Like
they just were like, these people are engaged in some
random sport and we're gonna broadcast it. By god, I
love that show. The thrill of victory in the agony
of defeat in Lumberjacks. The guy that the skier that
had that awful accident was always the agony of defeat.
I don't remember that guy? Was it in the intro? Yeah?
(08:22):
And then when they said that it showed this skier
had this just awful crash and flipping over and like
breaking everyone in his body. Did he die? No? I
don't think so he lived. He walked away, okay, is
what I say. Um. And then here we are today, actually, Chuck,
I think about four weeks away from the two thousand
(08:44):
ten Red Bull cliff Diving World Championships. Yeah, the World Series.
By the time this is published, it will probably be
within a couple of days, but it's May fifteen. If
you're interested, uh in going to France to watch it?
They jump off platform. So but it's at a cliff still, right.
But on the site, I was checking out some Frenchmen
who were cliff diving, um, and they went to this
(09:07):
old early nineteenth century. For that Napoleon had built off
the coast of France in the Atlantic. Cool. Um, and
it's I think twenty high, which places it around sixty
ft uh huh meters. First, well, it's in France. I
just thought i'd give like a little head nod, you know,
like France. Y um. And these guys were just jumping
(09:28):
off this old stone fortress in the middle of the Atlantic.
It's pretty cool. Well, I don't want to say the
middle of the Atlantic. It's actually right off the coast,
but it's surrounded by water. Yeah, you know, I saw
that picture. I didn't know what's going on there. That's
what was going on. Okay, mystery solved. Is it physics time?
This is this is your bag? Actually I understood. It's
(09:49):
really not that complicated. No, it's gravity, it's free fall.
Physics is what we're talking about. Sure, Chuck. When you
walked in here to sit down and contribute your fine
and half of this podcast, Um, you were being pulled
towards the Earth by gravity, but you were also meeting
resistance from the ground, which caused friction. Had you actually
(10:11):
walked off a cliff on the way in here, you
would have still been pulled by gravity, but there wouldn't
be any resistance from the from the force of friction, right,
which makes it free fall, which does make a free fall,
which Galileo was the first to figure this out of
free fall physics. Um, when you are pulled towards the
Earth by gravity, you're actually pulled at nine point eight
(10:32):
meters per second per second. And the reason that extra
per second is there is because for every second that
you're in the air falling at that rate, you're increasing
in speed. So you go nine point eight meters per
second per second to what um nineteen point six meters
(10:52):
per second per second, and so on. So every second
you double your speed, your your your velocity. The la
city is constant, but the speed can increase given time,
But the acceleration is constant, right, That's what it is. Yeah,
I'm sorry, the acceleration is constant, but your speed your
velocity can actually increase, right given time. Now, in the
(11:12):
case of cliff diving, height, the height of the cliff
is pretty much interchangeable with time. The higher the cliff,
the more time you're going to be in the air,
and the faster you go. Right, So when you jump
off I think a ten foot cliff. How fast are
you traveling? That's not much of a cliff, I call
it a rock? Yeah, pretty much about seventeen right. But
(11:34):
if you jump off a fifty foot cliff like you
were jumping off of in the quarries, well we'll say
fifty from now on, Um, that goes up to what
right now? The problem is when you hit the water,
you encounter that force of friction again, and your velocity
goes from its maximum speed to almost zero, almost instantaneous.
(11:56):
It's like a second right. Right now, we've encountered why
cliff diving is dangerous because eventually you're going to land
on something. Yeah, and you know, before we move on
from physics, I just thought it was interesting that when
you do jump out, or if you get a running start,
you're gonna go even faster than if you just drop.
You've added, um, horizontal velocity or horizontal force. I am
(12:19):
definitely not a physics guy, but you had it right. Velocity,
thanks buddy. One of the cool aspects of free fall
physics as far as it relates to humans. Also, Chuck,
get this. Do you remember learning like a long time
ago that no matter what the mass of an object,
it'll fall at the same rate. Galileo again, right, that
(12:40):
is Galileo. Yeah, and he actually disproved Aristotle with that one.
Some say they're both geniuses. They both are. Um did
we mention them in the Genius podcast that on that
list of fifty that ended in George Washington? Right? Um,
you might say that I've dropped a piece of paper
and a hammer the same time, and the piece of
(13:01):
paper took longer. That's because it meant resistance from the air.
And actually, um, Commander David Scott of the Apollo fifteen
mission famously took a hammer and I think a feather
on the Moon and dropped it and they both landed
at the same time. Yeah, there's video of it on YouTube.
Actually awesome, But I'm almost done with my physics spiel, okay,
(13:23):
And it ends as such, when you jump off a cliff,
and remember, you're not meeting friction any longer, and so
there's no resistance besides this negligible air resistance. Um, you
actually do encounter what we would consider on Earth as
close to weightlesses as we can get. Right, So your
your body is being pulled as a whole by gravity
(13:44):
equally all parts except for your internal organs, right, which
actually lose weightless lose weight and rise up in your chest,
which is why your stomach feels like it's coming out.
Actually is Isn't that cool? I've always wondered what that was.
That's what it is. Goodness me. Alright, we're done at
the physics part. Yeah, well two to three g s
(14:04):
we should say, Like at the World Championships they hit
about two to three gs and those dudes are going
at speeds up to sixty. That's fast. That's really fast
to be hitting the water. And you want to since
we're at the water entry point, which I think where
we left off with the physics, you want to go
and really really really straight. That's the key because if
(14:26):
you flatten out, it is the room. You know, you
hear the legend about it's like hitting concrete. It is
like hitting concrete and you would die, yes, you would,
or you know, not be the same person afterwards. The
very least. There's actually there's a website by a woman,
a Quebecan named Patricia I think her name is, who's
(14:46):
created this website dedicated to warning people about a famous
tourist Cliff diving site called Ricks Cafe and the Grille Jamaica.
That's only though, it is. But this woman jumped off
this thirty five ft platform and he bet she belly flopped.
She couldn't have gone in feet first, because this is
what happened to her is she suffered a broken spine,
(15:09):
broken sternum, displaced diaphragm, which is never good and uh
did she look at her purse? And terrible and uh
posterior vitreous detachment which means the jelly in her eyes loose. Now,
oh man, thirty thirty ft jump. Well, the deal there though,
at the cafe is they have it set up with
(15:29):
the platform, right they. I mean you have to sign
a waiver or anything. I don't know. I think if
if you were a smart owner of Rick's Cafe and
you were encouraging tourists and jump off the platform, yeah,
you would have them signed her way their firstborn child. Yeah. Yeah,
Well they do say in here though the official tours
tourism boards don't encourage this because it's dangerous. It's really dangerous. Yeah,
(15:53):
and we should also probably take the time to c
o A and tell you that we don't encourage you
to click dive either. No, I mean a tin foot
rock is one thing. But even then, if you land
on another rock, there's a lot of people like you said, fish, Yeah,
fish traveling sixty miles an hour and you hit a fish,
it's not as um let's say liquid as a water, right,
(16:18):
although it will be after you hit it at sixty miles,
So chuck. In addition to Ricks Cafe and the Grill,
what are some of the other um well known cliff
diving locations hot spots? Josh, that's one way to put it. Well,
I know Jamaica, the West End cliffs and the Grille.
That's where Ricks is. Oh is it that they have
(16:39):
the Limestone cliffs? Those are really popular? Sure? Pretty I imagine.
So there's two phrases or terms that the Hawaiians used
depending on whether you make a splash or not with
a big jump. So leally kawa that sounds right. Thanks.
That's a that's to leap from a great height and
enter the water without a splash, which we should say
(16:59):
is what King Kahikili did. Yeah, I think that's right.
Is that the name of the idol that the Brady
kids found in the episode where they went to Hawaii
the two parter I don't know those are great episodes,
though they really were. Debbie would know that, my friend
Debbie would know. Well, tell her to write in okay
okay um the other way. The other expression is lately pahu.
(17:24):
That sounds right too, thanks. Man. That's entering the water
with a big splash from a great jump, and that's
that's a bad thing, right, Yeah, some people just do
a cannon ball. Yeah, well say say so long to
your shins. Yeah, exactly. So we got Hawaii Acapulco again.
The La cabrata Um divers. Seriously, they're jumping off of
(17:45):
a hundred and forty seven foot cliffs right. The next
highest that I've seen, well, actually that i've seen in
this article is in Croatia and Dubrovnik, and those are
fet and that's about the height that they do. The
competition dives. They don't do competition dives from feet because
they're doing flips and twitter. Actually I've got some stuff
(18:06):
on that. But they're not just diving in. They going
feet first generally. Oh really, well, for the competition, I
haven't seen many of many of those guys going head first. Dude.
The guys in Acapulco flips in mid air and dive
in like it's not just jumping off of a cliff
like these, and they'll do it like several at a time. Well, yeah,
(18:27):
I did see on YouTube, but want a tandem dive
or whatever? This is multiple um. Also, if you ever
get a chance to go to Acapulco, I wouldn't recommend
going now, what with the raging drug war in Mexico.
But if that ever dies down and you do get
to go to Acapulco, do go see the cliff divers.
I think that's a great move. Or if you can't
(18:50):
go there, just go to YouTube. You can check it
out there. Check out some awfully bad video. Uh. The
World High Diving Federation, Josh, they recommend water depths of
forty nine feet for a dive of sixty ft or less,
and they also recommend that no one dive from six
(19:11):
are higher unless you're a pro and you have like
scuba divers down there to retrieve your lifeless body or
at least your shattered body. Exactly. Okay, Chuck, Let's say
somebody out there is going to try this, whether we
tell them to or not, and let's just do it again.
Let's just tell them not to cliff dive. Okay, don't
cliff dive, thank you. If they're going to do it anyway,
(19:31):
should we give them some safety tips, Yes, Josh, we
have some tips. The first one on the list slow
and low. Don't charge out there to the sixty ft
cliff right off the bat start on the tin footer,
slow and low. That is the tempo. You want to
check out, very nice. You want to check out the
water beforehand. Swim around down there at your landing zone.
(19:52):
Scare off any fish. You can scare off any fish.
Feel around for rocks and things, bar uncles, underwater spears,
anything like that. Right, you go with a friend who's
always a good idea. You don't want cliff side by yourself,
You're dummy. You might as well dig your own grave
and lye in and start shoveling dirt over yourself. They
(20:15):
recommend to wear a wetsuit because it can add a
little cushioning. But if you've ever seen cliff divers, they
generally wear the speedo I know, which makes it one
of the sexiest extreme sports around. You don't see Tony
Hawk in a speedo, do you know? Wow? I'm trying
to imagine on skateboarding with a speedo. I'm sure somebody's
done it. Probably those crazy kids that um jackass or whatever.
(20:39):
Oh yeah, that one guy always wears his underwear. Uh.
We we need to talk about Orlando Duque though. He's
like the king Daddy of cliff diving. He's ill do no,
actually they call him the Duke of dive, so you're
not like he he's Colombian, but he lives in Hawaii. Now.
He's nine time world champ and his personal w kird
(21:00):
in competition is a hundred and eleven feet and he
holds the record for the perfect dive. He's the only
guy to ever get judged to get scored a perfect
dive across the board And um, did they factor in
how you looking a speedo into that score? Yeah? He's
a handsome man, Yeah he has Uh. He also he
was he wanted to be a high diver for Columbia,
(21:21):
but they didn't like an Olympic hidiver. But they wouldn't
fund him, so he was like, okay, yeah, I go
dig off cliffs performance shows. So he makes a lot
more scratch doing this, I'm sure than he would have
as an as an Olympian. I'd like to mention somebody
who's that. His name is de Juan Ron. He's Chinese.
If you couldn't get he's fifty one and he actually
(21:43):
holds the world record that he's set in two thousand
and eight for um cliff diving off of waterfalls. Wow.
I want you to think about this for a second.
In most cases with waterfalls, there are rocks at the
bottom and there's a little something that we like to
call a vortex. Yes, this is a swirling funnel of
(22:04):
water underwater that sucks you in and hold you there.
This guy aims for the center. Does that make sense?
Apparently because he's survived it would soften the fall though
probably right. I have no idea why he jumps into
the center. He just does. Wow. Ye how high? Uh?
The twelve point nineteen meters? So what's that? It's like,
(22:30):
it's not It isn't. But he's jumping into a vortex
for God's sake, right, and he's one. Yeah. The there's
high divers too, that's a different deal. Like the show people,
the high diving show people. That's not a cliff thing situation, obviously,
but they think the world record is do name Oliver
Farve hundred and seventy eight feet and into they jump
(22:53):
into those pools like a little little cup riding an
elephant cartoon. Um and the previous guy, I can't remember
what his name was, but I saw it on YouTube.
It was in the seventies and I remember watching this
when I was a kid, and it might have been
on Wide World of Sports, but it showed oh Dana
something and he had the Camra review of his little
platform up there and it was crazy, man, I mean
(23:16):
I got like butterflies watching it in my cubicle Wenna.
I guess wait, there was one more thing I wanted
to say. Competition the Red Bull deal. You get three
heats per competition and you're judged on drop, position in
the air and dive which means you know your flips.
(23:38):
There's three things you can get scored on number of twists, summersaults,
and position during the summersaults, and then entry into the water.
So sort of like regular Olympic diving the way that scored,
but just much higher. And they call him heats because
of the speedos. I think you might be right. If
you want to learn more about cliff diving, just type
cliff diving in the handy search bar how stuff works
(23:58):
dot com, which means we've arrived of now friends at
listener mail Chuck Chuck, Chuck, Chuck Chuck Chuck handbreak. Yes,
we should just do the Facebook Twitter thing real quick. Facebook.
We have great streamline Facebook page. That stuff you should know.
You can type that in the search part Facebook. Yes,
(24:19):
we also tweet now we do. That's s Y s
K podcasts. Yes on Facebook, though, I should mention we
have some fan art already there and if you have
like cool fan arn't stuff you've done uploaded, because we
want to get all kinds of stuff for people look at.
We want it to be more than just you and
I a running our mouths because that's how we ever do. Yes,
that's right to get involved. And you're gonna be releasing
(24:41):
t shirt details eventually eventually. Okay, we'll look for those
on our Facebook page. Right, Yes, so back to it, beautiful, Josh,
I'm gonna call this hanky email alright, saw, this is nice.
I like it when people weird dreams about us. Hello,
Josh and Chuck and Jerry. Yesterday I was going to
(25:02):
email you to tell you that due to listening to
your podcast on my daily commute, I've begun to describe
things as hinky instead of dodgy. She's from the UK,
which is the word I would usually use. This means
that whenever I use it, I have to explain what
it means. It's not a widely word used in the UK,
as it seems hinky' is not. Uh. This ends up
(25:24):
in me recommending your podcast to a lot of people,
so she's actually spreading the word thanks to the hinky thing.
Then I thought it's not that exciting of a story,
so I decided not to send the email. But last
night I dreamt I had a dream about you, guys.
I dreamt I bumped into Josh at a beach bar,
which she says she's never been to a beach bar
and she has no idea where it was. I told
(25:45):
him the hinky story, and then behind him he pointed
to a big sign that said hanky. Then he told
me a lot of things Chuck does rubs off on people,
and he proceeded to show me a bare snarl complete
with swiping paul action. So I took this as a
sign that I should probably send the email. I just
(26:05):
think that's hysterical that was clearly a sign. Yeah, I
want to see you can do the parsnel with the
swiping pol Wow, that's nice. The dream was by far
the most normal dream I had last night. By the way,
I also dreamt I got married by postal marriage. I
didn't know what's such a thing. Well, yeah, mail order bride.
Now is that what she means? Anyway? I hope that
(26:26):
you take some pride in the fact that you were
spreading the word hinky around the world from Rachel X. Okay,
thanks for that, Rachel. All right, Chuck, that was a
good one. It was. We always like it when we're
factored into dreams, right, that's just cool. It is especially
I mean, consider that we have um people who we've
never met dreaming about us. I dream about people I've
never met. I guess that my celebrity dreams all the time.
(26:48):
I've told you about those. Yes, I'm like hanging out
like buddies with people I love. If you ever had
a dream about Chuck paling around with the celebrities never met,
we want to hear about it, even if you make
it up. Put in an email and send it to
Stuff Podcast at how Stuff works dot com. For more
(27:11):
on this and thousands of other topics. Is it how
stuff works dot Com. Want more how stuff works, check
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home page. Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand
twelve camera. It's ready, are you
Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve Camray.
It's ready. Are you welcome to Stuff You Should Know
from House Stuff Works dot Com? Hey, and welcome to
the podcast. I'm Josh Clark. With me is Charles W.
Chuck Bryant were a couple of writers for how Stuff
(00:22):
Works dot Com. When we sit down in front of
these mics, though, to become stuff you should know, we
tear open our shirts and there's a big s y
s k on our chest tattooed. That's exactly right, Chuck, Chuck. Yes,
you ever jumped off a cliff? I have indeed, Yeah, yeah,
the Rock Quarry and Sparta. Do you ever go there? No,
(00:43):
I've jumped off of that one that was that was
pretty high. There's a rock Cory and Toledo that I
never went to. Actually it was in uh White House, Whitehall,
Bowling Green somewhere around there. I never went. My dad
was certified as a scoopa diver there though. Yeah. They
put something in a bus that was sunken at the
bottom of it. He had to go get it out
to prove that he could in fact scuba dive. Yeah,
(01:03):
it sounds creepy. Done that. Yeah, I myself have never
jumped off a cliff. I love it. Is it thrilling? Yeah,
it's fun. How high was it? I think I'm probably
overstating it, like everyone probably does when they do the
skinny thing, but it seemed like it was probably about
forty or fifty ft. Wow, it was high. Yeah, that
is high. And actually there's a place at the Chattahoochie that. Uh.
(01:25):
I used to do it too, but that was like, well, Chuck,
you have a hair your chest than I do, because
I've never jumped off a cliff, but I have been
to Acapoco before you got me there? Have you? Did
you read about these guys? Oh yeah, the the La
Cabrata diverse. I think it's nice that you bring that
(01:45):
extra acts. You don't have to bring an accent. And anyway,
that French dude email is this weekend. He said he
appreciated it. Yeah, He's like, I'm totally wrong, but he
thought it was funny. Yeah, so yeah, Brata, Yeah, it's
a it's pretty cool. These guys are jumping off of
the highest cliffs that anybody routinely jumps off of the world.
(02:05):
I did, Oh, I didn't know you actually witnessed the performance. Yeah,
I mean, you can't go to Acapoco and not see it.
I believe it's daily, um, except maybe Sundays, but I
could just be making that up. But the guys, Um,
they jump off something like I think a hundred and
forty eight foot cliffs. That's crazy. Yeah, which what is
that meters? Chuck, Josh, that would be about forty five Okay, nice,
(02:28):
thanks for that. You're just a walking calculator. You know
it's written right in front of me. Um. But this
is an enormous cliff. This is what a fourteen story
building isn't a story like ten feet? Yeah, so they're
jumping off of fourteen story buildings into waters. It's like
a little inlet and they're on one side and then
you're on the other with railing so you don't try
(02:50):
jumping off. And these guys just start jumping. There's like
ten fifteen of them. Wow, they do it every night.
And actually it was started by a thirteen old boy
back in Yeah, that's what I hear. And I will
pronounce his name as Enrique et Pakrios, very very nice. Um.
(03:10):
So this little boy started this tourist attraction, and what
has arguably become a one of the cooler extreme sports
as well. But the story goes back further than that, correct. Yeah,
But I just want to point out we're on the
fifte floor, so this is ballpark. Within about ten or
fifty out the window were wow, Yeah, that's high. Jerry's giggling.
(03:43):
She's either gonna cut that out or leave it in.
We'll find out, right, that is very high. That is
real high. Yeah. I mean we would have jumped onto
the street have we just jumped out? Plus it would
have been an extra ten ft. This is water, but
I'm telling you there's like bowlders at the bottom, there's
waves breaking. It's an inlet at the ocean, and that's
part of the trick is to time it with the
(04:03):
water coming in and out, and then obviously mind the
boulders and because you know, you clearly don't want to
like jump into a boulder. But what I also noticed
in this article that if you hit like a fish,
that could be bad news. Right yeah. Uh. And we'll
get into the physics of cliff diving soon. But like
I said, where where do we find the beginning? This
(04:24):
is one of those rare um pieces of um world culture.
Because everybody does it everywhere. Anywhere there's cliffs, there's cliff
divers pretty much. But this is one of those rare
pieces that you can go back and be like, this
guy actually started it. I don't think this is the
first guy. I would say, he's probably the first guy
in recorded history. Do you want to take his name? Yes,
(04:45):
I'm gonna go with the King kahikil of Hawaii. He
was the last king of Maui and in seventeen seventy
he reportedly jumped from cannot seats where I get in
trouble Calnolulu. I think it's pretty much how I would
(05:07):
in my in my head, I can pronounce it better
than that. But once it goes through the tongue, you
know what happens. That was about sixty three ft and
he uh entered the water, didn't make much of a splash.
So he earned the name Birdman and then apparently would
challenge his warriors to prove their bravery by doing the same. Right.
So that's where it started, at least that's what the
(05:28):
lower says. And I can imagine, you know, his people
calling him Birdman and him going, um no, it's uh
Kiley king Kay Kiley actually to you. Yeah, um, but yeah,
Actually every night at the Ratan Maui they reenact this thing.
They have some guy go up to the top of
a cliff and it's very cliff. He jumped off of
(05:51):
right in a loincloth and jump into the water. And
the reason he jumped into the water was because this
is where the uh the Maui's yeah right, Malian's sure. Uh.
They where they believed that souls transferred into the next
world through, yeah, the spirit world. And I guess he
was like, let's see what the hell happens, right, So
(06:12):
now they re enacted with the loincloth to dude, he
offers up in each direction to the sky, uh and
offering he has the lay and then a torch and
then he'll jump in right and uh when he jumped
in absolutely no one outside of the Greater Maui area
had a clue. But many years later, the cliff diving
(06:34):
concept really started to take off thanks to time X
and ABC Correct So time X. Back in the late fifties,
time makes used to like to um show off the
impact resistance that their watches could boast. Yeah, I remember
the and I was about to say, I remember this
one when I was remember when it first broadcast, so
(06:55):
clearly I didn't. But they ran this campaign through the
seventies because I remember the takes a look and keeps
on ticking things. That's right, Yeah, that's what that That
was the tagline. Right. So this commercial though they jumped in,
uh John Cameron Swayze what I don't think any relation
to Patrick. I was wondering the same thing. Actually, I
have to look that up. Uh he uh hosted this
(07:18):
commercial and they give a torture test. Right, No, he
didn't actually jump in, now, he was just like check
this guy out. And they had some cliff diver jump
in fist first with the time X like exposed, so
it was the first thing that hit the water, and
I imagined that after a few takes he eventually didn't
break the watch and they were like, look what happened.
(07:39):
So that was the late fifties and then really cliff
diving took off, if you'll excuse me, uh in I
think March nine. Yes, it took the leap in so bad.
With the A b C's Wide World of Sports, which
was a great concept. Man all over the place, they
(08:01):
show the craziest stuff. This is long before anybody ever
thought of the X Games or anything like that. Like
they just were like, these people are engaged in some
random sport and we're gonna broadcast it. By god, I
love that show. The thrill of victory in the agony
of defeat in Lumberjacks. The guy that the skier that
had that awful accident was always the agony of defeat.
I don't remember that guy? Was it in the intro? Yeah?
(08:22):
And then when they said that it showed this skier
had this just awful crash and flipping over and like
breaking everyone in his body. Did he die? No? I
don't think so he lived. He walked away, okay, is
what I say. Um. And then here we are today, actually, Chuck,
I think about four weeks away from the two thousand
(08:44):
ten Red Bull cliff Diving World Championships. Yeah, the World Series.
By the time this is published, it will probably be
within a couple of days, but it's May fifteen. If
you're interested, uh in going to France to watch it?
They jump off platform. So but it's at a cliff still, right.
But on the site, I was checking out some Frenchmen
who were cliff diving, um, and they went to this
(09:07):
old early nineteenth century. For that Napoleon had built off
the coast of France in the Atlantic. Cool. Um, and
it's I think twenty high, which places it around sixty
ft uh huh meters. First, well, it's in France. I
just thought i'd give like a little head nod, you know,
like France. Y um. And these guys were just jumping
(09:28):
off this old stone fortress in the middle of the Atlantic.
It's pretty cool. Well, I don't want to say the
middle of the Atlantic. It's actually right off the coast,
but it's surrounded by water. Yeah, you know, I saw
that picture. I didn't know what's going on there. That's
what was going on. Okay, mystery solved. Is it physics time?
This is this is your bag? Actually I understood. It's
(09:49):
really not that complicated. No, it's gravity, it's free fall.
Physics is what we're talking about. Sure, Chuck. When you
walked in here to sit down and contribute your fine
and half of this podcast, Um, you were being pulled
towards the Earth by gravity, but you were also meeting
resistance from the ground, which caused friction. Had you actually
(10:11):
walked off a cliff on the way in here, you
would have still been pulled by gravity, but there wouldn't
be any resistance from the from the force of friction, right,
which makes it free fall, which does make a free fall,
which Galileo was the first to figure this out of
free fall physics. Um, when you are pulled towards the
Earth by gravity, you're actually pulled at nine point eight
(10:32):
meters per second per second. And the reason that extra
per second is there is because for every second that
you're in the air falling at that rate, you're increasing
in speed. So you go nine point eight meters per
second per second to what um nineteen point six meters
(10:52):
per second per second, and so on. So every second
you double your speed, your your your velocity. The la
city is constant, but the speed can increase given time,
But the acceleration is constant, right, That's what it is. Yeah,
I'm sorry, the acceleration is constant, but your speed your
velocity can actually increase, right given time. Now, in the
(11:12):
case of cliff diving, height, the height of the cliff
is pretty much interchangeable with time. The higher the cliff,
the more time you're going to be in the air,
and the faster you go. Right, So when you jump
off I think a ten foot cliff. How fast are
you traveling? That's not much of a cliff, I call
it a rock? Yeah, pretty much about seventeen right. But
(11:34):
if you jump off a fifty foot cliff like you
were jumping off of in the quarries, well we'll say
fifty from now on, Um, that goes up to what
right now? The problem is when you hit the water,
you encounter that force of friction again, and your velocity
goes from its maximum speed to almost zero, almost instantaneous.
(11:56):
It's like a second right. Right now, we've encountered why
cliff diving is dangerous because eventually you're going to land
on something. Yeah, and you know, before we move on
from physics, I just thought it was interesting that when
you do jump out, or if you get a running start,
you're gonna go even faster than if you just drop.
You've added, um, horizontal velocity or horizontal force. I am
(12:19):
definitely not a physics guy, but you had it right. Velocity,
thanks buddy. One of the cool aspects of free fall
physics as far as it relates to humans. Also, Chuck,
get this. Do you remember learning like a long time
ago that no matter what the mass of an object,
it'll fall at the same rate. Galileo again, right, that
(12:40):
is Galileo. Yeah, and he actually disproved Aristotle with that one.
Some say they're both geniuses. They both are. Um did
we mention them in the Genius podcast that on that
list of fifty that ended in George Washington? Right? Um,
you might say that I've dropped a piece of paper
and a hammer the same time, and the piece of
(13:01):
paper took longer. That's because it meant resistance from the air.
And actually, um, Commander David Scott of the Apollo fifteen
mission famously took a hammer and I think a feather
on the Moon and dropped it and they both landed
at the same time. Yeah, there's video of it on YouTube.
Actually awesome, But I'm almost done with my physics spiel, okay,
(13:23):
And it ends as such, when you jump off a cliff,
and remember, you're not meeting friction any longer, and so
there's no resistance besides this negligible air resistance. Um, you
actually do encounter what we would consider on Earth as
close to weightlesses as we can get. Right, So your
your body is being pulled as a whole by gravity
(13:44):
equally all parts except for your internal organs, right, which
actually lose weightless lose weight and rise up in your chest,
which is why your stomach feels like it's coming out.
Actually is Isn't that cool? I've always wondered what that was.
That's what it is. Goodness me. Alright, we're done at
the physics part. Yeah, well two to three g s
(14:04):
we should say, Like at the World Championships they hit
about two to three gs and those dudes are going
at speeds up to sixty. That's fast. That's really fast
to be hitting the water. And you want to since
we're at the water entry point, which I think where
we left off with the physics, you want to go
and really really really straight. That's the key because if
(14:26):
you flatten out, it is the room. You know, you
hear the legend about it's like hitting concrete. It is
like hitting concrete and you would die, yes, you would,
or you know, not be the same person afterwards. The
very least. There's actually there's a website by a woman,
a Quebecan named Patricia I think her name is, who's
(14:46):
created this website dedicated to warning people about a famous
tourist Cliff diving site called Ricks Cafe and the Grille Jamaica.
That's only though, it is. But this woman jumped off
this thirty five ft platform and he bet she belly flopped.
She couldn't have gone in feet first, because this is
what happened to her is she suffered a broken spine,
(15:09):
broken sternum, displaced diaphragm, which is never good and uh
did she look at her purse? And terrible and uh
posterior vitreous detachment which means the jelly in her eyes loose. Now,
oh man, thirty thirty ft jump. Well, the deal there though,
at the cafe is they have it set up with
(15:29):
the platform, right they. I mean you have to sign
a waiver or anything. I don't know. I think if
if you were a smart owner of Rick's Cafe and
you were encouraging tourists and jump off the platform, yeah,
you would have them signed her way their firstborn child. Yeah. Yeah,
Well they do say in here though the official tours
tourism boards don't encourage this because it's dangerous. It's really dangerous. Yeah,
(15:53):
and we should also probably take the time to c
o A and tell you that we don't encourage you
to click dive either. No, I mean a tin foot
rock is one thing. But even then, if you land
on another rock, there's a lot of people like you said, fish, Yeah,
fish traveling sixty miles an hour and you hit a fish,
it's not as um let's say liquid as a water, right,
(16:18):
although it will be after you hit it at sixty miles,
So chuck. In addition to Ricks Cafe and the Grill,
what are some of the other um well known cliff
diving locations hot spots? Josh, that's one way to put it. Well,
I know Jamaica, the West End cliffs and the Grille.
That's where Ricks is. Oh is it that they have
(16:39):
the Limestone cliffs? Those are really popular? Sure? Pretty I imagine.
So there's two phrases or terms that the Hawaiians used
depending on whether you make a splash or not with
a big jump. So leally kawa that sounds right. Thanks.
That's a that's to leap from a great height and
enter the water without a splash, which we should say
(16:59):
is what King Kahikili did. Yeah, I think that's right.
Is that the name of the idol that the Brady
kids found in the episode where they went to Hawaii
the two parter I don't know those are great episodes,
though they really were. Debbie would know that, my friend
Debbie would know. Well, tell her to write in okay
okay um the other way. The other expression is lately pahu.
(17:24):
That sounds right too, thanks. Man. That's entering the water
with a big splash from a great jump, and that's
that's a bad thing, right, Yeah, some people just do
a cannon ball. Yeah, well say say so long to
your shins. Yeah, exactly. So we got Hawaii Acapulco again.
The La cabrata Um divers. Seriously, they're jumping off of
(17:45):
a hundred and forty seven foot cliffs right. The next
highest that I've seen, well, actually that i've seen in
this article is in Croatia and Dubrovnik, and those are
fet and that's about the height that they do. The
competition dives. They don't do competition dives from feet because
they're doing flips and twitter. Actually I've got some stuff
(18:06):
on that. But they're not just diving in. They going
feet first generally. Oh really, well, for the competition, I
haven't seen many of many of those guys going head first. Dude.
The guys in Acapulco flips in mid air and dive
in like it's not just jumping off of a cliff
like these, and they'll do it like several at a time. Well, yeah,
(18:27):
I did see on YouTube, but want a tandem dive
or whatever? This is multiple um. Also, if you ever
get a chance to go to Acapulco, I wouldn't recommend
going now, what with the raging drug war in Mexico.
But if that ever dies down and you do get
to go to Acapulco, do go see the cliff divers.
I think that's a great move. Or if you can't
(18:50):
go there, just go to YouTube. You can check it
out there. Check out some awfully bad video. Uh. The
World High Diving Federation, Josh, they recommend water depths of
forty nine feet for a dive of sixty ft or less,
and they also recommend that no one dive from six
(19:11):
are higher unless you're a pro and you have like
scuba divers down there to retrieve your lifeless body or
at least your shattered body. Exactly. Okay, Chuck, Let's say
somebody out there is going to try this, whether we
tell them to or not, and let's just do it again.
Let's just tell them not to cliff dive. Okay, don't
cliff dive, thank you. If they're going to do it anyway,
(19:31):
should we give them some safety tips, Yes, Josh, we
have some tips. The first one on the list slow
and low. Don't charge out there to the sixty ft
cliff right off the bat start on the tin footer,
slow and low. That is the tempo. You want to
check out, very nice. You want to check out the
water beforehand. Swim around down there at your landing zone.
(19:52):
Scare off any fish. You can scare off any fish.
Feel around for rocks and things, bar uncles, underwater spears,
anything like that. Right, you go with a friend who's
always a good idea. You don't want cliff side by yourself,
You're dummy. You might as well dig your own grave
and lye in and start shoveling dirt over yourself. They
(20:15):
recommend to wear a wetsuit because it can add a
little cushioning. But if you've ever seen cliff divers, they
generally wear the speedo I know, which makes it one
of the sexiest extreme sports around. You don't see Tony
Hawk in a speedo, do you know? Wow? I'm trying
to imagine on skateboarding with a speedo. I'm sure somebody's
done it. Probably those crazy kids that um jackass or whatever.
(20:39):
Oh yeah, that one guy always wears his underwear. Uh.
We we need to talk about Orlando Duque though. He's
like the king Daddy of cliff diving. He's ill do no,
actually they call him the Duke of dive, so you're
not like he he's Colombian, but he lives in Hawaii. Now.
He's nine time world champ and his personal w kird
(21:00):
in competition is a hundred and eleven feet and he
holds the record for the perfect dive. He's the only
guy to ever get judged to get scored a perfect
dive across the board And um, did they factor in
how you looking a speedo into that score? Yeah? He's
a handsome man, Yeah he has Uh. He also he
was he wanted to be a high diver for Columbia,
(21:21):
but they didn't like an Olympic hidiver. But they wouldn't
fund him, so he was like, okay, yeah, I go
dig off cliffs performance shows. So he makes a lot
more scratch doing this, I'm sure than he would have
as an as an Olympian. I'd like to mention somebody
who's that. His name is de Juan Ron. He's Chinese.
If you couldn't get he's fifty one and he actually
(21:43):
holds the world record that he's set in two thousand
and eight for um cliff diving off of waterfalls. Wow.
I want you to think about this for a second.
In most cases with waterfalls, there are rocks at the
bottom and there's a little something that we like to
call a vortex. Yes, this is a swirling funnel of
(22:04):
water underwater that sucks you in and hold you there.
This guy aims for the center. Does that make sense?
Apparently because he's survived it would soften the fall though
probably right. I have no idea why he jumps into
the center. He just does. Wow. Ye how high? Uh?
The twelve point nineteen meters? So what's that? It's like,
(22:30):
it's not It isn't. But he's jumping into a vortex
for God's sake, right, and he's one. Yeah. The there's
high divers too, that's a different deal. Like the show people,
the high diving show people. That's not a cliff thing situation, obviously,
but they think the world record is do name Oliver
Farve hundred and seventy eight feet and into they jump
(22:53):
into those pools like a little little cup riding an
elephant cartoon. Um and the previous guy, I can't remember
what his name was, but I saw it on YouTube.
It was in the seventies and I remember watching this
when I was a kid, and it might have been
on Wide World of Sports, but it showed oh Dana
something and he had the Camra review of his little
platform up there and it was crazy, man, I mean
(23:16):
I got like butterflies watching it in my cubicle Wenna.
I guess wait, there was one more thing I wanted
to say. Competition the Red Bull deal. You get three
heats per competition and you're judged on drop, position in
the air and dive which means you know your flips.
(23:38):
There's three things you can get scored on number of twists, summersaults,
and position during the summersaults, and then entry into the water.
So sort of like regular Olympic diving the way that scored,
but just much higher. And they call him heats because
of the speedos. I think you might be right. If
you want to learn more about cliff diving, just type
cliff diving in the handy search bar how stuff works
(23:58):
dot com, which means we've arrived of now friends at
listener mail Chuck Chuck, Chuck, Chuck Chuck Chuck handbreak. Yes,
we should just do the Facebook Twitter thing real quick. Facebook.
We have great streamline Facebook page. That stuff you should know.
You can type that in the search part Facebook. Yes,
(24:19):
we also tweet now we do. That's s Y s
K podcasts. Yes on Facebook, though, I should mention we
have some fan art already there and if you have
like cool fan arn't stuff you've done uploaded, because we
want to get all kinds of stuff for people look at.
We want it to be more than just you and
I a running our mouths because that's how we ever do. Yes,
that's right to get involved. And you're gonna be releasing
(24:41):
t shirt details eventually eventually. Okay, we'll look for those
on our Facebook page. Right, Yes, so back to it, beautiful, Josh,
I'm gonna call this hanky email alright, saw, this is nice.
I like it when people weird dreams about us. Hello,
Josh and Chuck and Jerry. Yesterday I was going to
(25:02):
email you to tell you that due to listening to
your podcast on my daily commute, I've begun to describe
things as hinky instead of dodgy. She's from the UK,
which is the word I would usually use. This means
that whenever I use it, I have to explain what
it means. It's not a widely word used in the UK,
as it seems hinky' is not. Uh. This ends up
(25:24):
in me recommending your podcast to a lot of people,
so she's actually spreading the word thanks to the hinky thing.
Then I thought it's not that exciting of a story,
so I decided not to send the email. But last
night I dreamt I had a dream about you, guys.
I dreamt I bumped into Josh at a beach bar,
which she says she's never been to a beach bar
and she has no idea where it was. I told
(25:45):
him the hinky story, and then behind him he pointed
to a big sign that said hanky. Then he told
me a lot of things Chuck does rubs off on people,
and he proceeded to show me a bare snarl complete
with swiping paul action. So I took this as a
sign that I should probably send the email. I just
(26:05):
think that's hysterical that was clearly a sign. Yeah, I
want to see you can do the parsnel with the
swiping pol Wow, that's nice. The dream was by far
the most normal dream I had last night. By the way,
I also dreamt I got married by postal marriage. I
didn't know what's such a thing. Well, yeah, mail order bride.
Now is that what she means? Anyway? I hope that
(26:26):
you take some pride in the fact that you were
spreading the word hinky around the world from Rachel X. Okay,
thanks for that, Rachel. All right, Chuck, that was a
good one. It was. We always like it when we're
factored into dreams, right, that's just cool. It is especially
I mean, consider that we have um people who we've
never met dreaming about us. I dream about people I've
never met. I guess that my celebrity dreams all the time.
(26:48):
I've told you about those. Yes, I'm like hanging out
like buddies with people I love. If you ever had
a dream about Chuck paling around with the celebrities never met,
we want to hear about it, even if you make
it up. Put in an email and send it to
Stuff Podcast at how Stuff works dot com. For more
(27:11):
on this and thousands of other topics. Is it how
stuff works dot Com. Want more how stuff works, check
out our blogs on the how stuff works dot Com
home page. Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand
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