Cliff Jumping

On the way to Hana we stopped at Waianapanapa State Park, where the black sand beach is. Almost the first thing that caught the girls' attention was this:

See the little people at the top? They were jumping off...

The girls asked me if they could do it and I said yes. They made me promise to take lots of pictures and then rushed off, and my mom asked me if I was crazy. Well they are both very good swimmers and I could see other people doing it and surviving... my feeling was, if I told them no, they would always wonder if they could have done it. And I didn't want to be responsible for that...

But I must admit that the whole time they were swimming out and climbing up I was chanting "please don't die, please don't die"... it's hard to tell from the pictures but we figured it was about a 50 foot jump, into the ocean waves.

First Lindsey

Then Hilary

Then they had to climb out over lava rocks in the waves - later they told us that this was actually the hardest part!

And Hilary had the wounds to prove it!

Silly girl, she was hoping this would leave a scar so she would always remember her cliff dive...