I woke up to the smell of good eggs and bad coffee. Nobody wants to smell bad coffee, but I definitely prefer that combination to no coffee. Ash was up at the crack of dawn, sitting on the porch and taking in the view of the sea.
We ate on the porch before walking down the stone steps to the sound of children playing in the water, and cicadas arguing among the trees. The small village on the island of Kolocep already felt like home to us, and we waved to a smiling Dolores as she enjoyed an ice cream cone from her grandmother’s market. We strolled into the market, and Dolores’s grandmother unleashed an arm-opening welcome to us, knowing we would be regulars for the next week. This was what we were after: feeling like locals in a peaceful place on the water where humans lived simpler lives.
We left the market armed with the essentials: water and Ožujsko, the most popular Croatian beer. Next we went to check out renting a kayak, and I approached the woman sitting next to the kayaks on the beach. She looked up, smiled, and said, “Dolores told me you two were interested in kayaking!” The woman told us her name was Narissa.
She gave us the rundown of the two-seater kayak and told us we had until roughly 5:00 p.m. to return it. I was confused at the casualness of this transaction. There was no paperwork, no deposit, and no lack of trust.
“We won’t have our phones, so keeping track of time will be tough. We will try to get back by 5:00 p.m., but what if we are a little late?” I asked honestly.
“No worries,” Narissa said, smiling. “I will be around, and besides, I know where you guys live.”
I pushed the big green kayak into the shallows, jumped in, and we set off into the cove. Ash sat in the front, and I manned the ship from the stern (yes, I had to look up which end was the stern). As we cruised out of earshot of the kids playing, I looked down and saw each individual spike on the black urchins below us as though the seabed were mere inches, and not twenty feet, away.
We hugged the coastline to observe the flora and fauna along the island, and scanned the shore as if we were going to see dinosaurs.
“Ash, look, a Pancakeasaurus,” I whispered, pointing at an older naked woman perched on a rock.
Narissa had told us about the nude beach around the corner of the cove, but we didn’t anticipate seeing anyone this close. There were more participants than we had expected. We tried to avoid eye contact and continued paddling. Normally, if we saw someone onshore, we would smile and wave, but when they were nude, we treated them like outcasts. What can I say? I guess we were prejudiced.
We had been paddling for an hour or so when we decided to find rocks to jump off of into the sea to let our muscles cool down. We executed a semi-controlled crash into one of the very few smooth rocks on the coastline. This was our first interaction with the rocks of Croatia. They are as sharp and unforgiving as Judge Judy.
We spent half an hour climbing onto rocks and avoiding sea urchins (the one true nemesis of the Adriatic Sea), and jumped into the crystal-clear water. Ash decided she wanted to join the nudist movement and freed herself of the restriction of her bathing suit. As you can imagine, I had no reservations to this.
Back in the kayak, Ash eventually stopped stopped paddling to fully take in the rocky coast. I didn’t want to tell her, but my arms and shoulders were nearly numb as I slowly propelled us through the sea. We had reached the western side of the island that faced across the Adriatic to Italy. The current was a little stronger on the side that faced the deep sea, but we quickly wrapped around the corner and came to what would be known for the rest of the week as our “playground,” an oasis of crystal-clear pools with not one boat in sight. We docked the boat in an area of the island where we could stand and overlook the pool. Again, when I say docked, I mean we chaotically crashed the boat into rocks, screaming at each other to try to steady the watercraft enough to get out.
We sat on the rocks and drank a beer each, occasionally dipping into the salty water to heal our cut-up feet. The water in the Adriatic was saltier than McDonald’s fries; in fact, the locals told us that the water was so salty in Kolocep that there was very little marine life. I think Croatia is such a hidden gem that the fish don’t even know about it.
After gaining enough liquid courage from our two-liter Ožujskos, we climbed to the top of the rock, twenty feet above the small pool, and analyzed the depth of the sea below. It was definitely deep enough, but the fact that we had not yet done it was the scary part. Ash and I agreed that if we were going to jump, we would do it together. On the count of three, we would jump and face the unknown pool below. Twice the countdown made it to two … and Ash shook her hands and bounced up and down, saying, “No, no, no, not yet!”
Jumping for the first time was scary. I wasn’t afraid of landing on anything. The water below was clearly twenty feet deep. I also wasn’t afraid of drowning; I am not a great swimmer, but I am a magnificent water-treader. What scared me was the fall itself: I was afraid of jumping, because as soon as I left the familiarity of the rock, I was no longer in control. I couldn’t decide that I preferred the comfort of the rock halfway to the sea and turn back. It was all or nothing. Gravity would take over, and whether I was ready or not, I would be seeing the rock from a different perspective.
Finally we agreed this was it. I counted down: three, two, one. Despite the fear of the unknown, I decided I had spent enough time on this rock, and jumped. When gravity introduced me to the Adriatic, she welcomed me with open arms. But I’d left the spiky rocks with just enough time to turn in the air to see Ash standing apologetically on the rocks, ashamed at herself for not jumping, before I hit the water.
“What took you so long?” Ash asked upon my arrival to the surface.
“I should be asking you the same question,” I replied, salty about her breach of contract. I scrambled onto the rocks and climbed up to the jumping spot. She was still too scared, and decided she just didn’t want to jump yet. It was pretty high, and I didn’t blame her. Suddenly I heard voices coming from around the cove. I realized Ash was still topless. It had been hours now, and I had simply grown accustomed to her bare breasts. I spotted a boat full of people, and said, “Hey, Ash! Look there are some people over—”
Splash.
“Ash?” I turned and saw a cloud of bubbles below.
Fear was another reason to jump. I won’t beat around the metaphorical bush here. We jumped because of the fear of life ending and us not enjoying it to the fullest. We jumped because of the fear of being stuck in the same situation each and every day. We jumped because the routine was eating away at our happiness. Just because the rock was comfortable, didn’t mean it wasn’t worth jumping to find out what the water was like. In this case, Ash jumped because there was a group of people on a small boat in the pool adjacent to us, and although she was supportive of the “Free the Nips” campaign … she wasn’t ready to run for office.
Our next stop was the blue cave. We saw boats in the area we were told to go to, and started the long trek across the bay. We followed as a guide dove into the water and swam into what seemed like a one-foot-by-one-foot gap in the wall. There is no way that is an entrance to a cave, I thought, watching as the guide disappeared. I was up next, and I got closer to the entrance, but the waves propelled me up against the wall. I ducked under at the last second to avoid hitting my head on the spiky rocks, and after a quick plunge through, emerged into what looked like the exotic club in Amsterdam.
The first thing I noticed was the water temperature; it was significantly colder than the water outside. The small bit of sunlight entering the slit in the wall turned the entire cave a blue that resonated off the moist walls. I could not believe how large the cave was, its ceilings as high as fifteen feet. The bottom was covered in soft, smooth sand, unlike the bottom of the pools outside. I quickly turned around to see Ash’s priceless reaction as she surfaced into the oasis. “Shut the fuck up,” she spit out through salty water. I apologized for the ugly words that had been ejected out of the beautiful mouth of my girlfriend, but the Croatian guide just laughed. I think he had seen this reaction before. I still couldn’t believe that small hole had led us to this paradise … but you know what they say: never judge a cave by its entrance.
After floating in the blue cave and taking enough pictures/videos with the GoPro to last a lifetime, we decided it was time to get moving to make our 5:00 p.m. kayak deadline with Narissa. We were not sure how much farther it was to finish the circle of the island, but we could see Dubrovnik from our watercraft, so we knew we were on the east side. We paddled for thirty minutes and soaked in the seawater with each splash from our oars. I spotted a massive table-like rock jutting out over the sea. It resembled an Olympic diving platform. I steered us toward the platform to check it out.
Once we made land, we scaled the rocks to the natural diving platform, and I carefully stepped to the ledge to peer over the edge. Oh, hell no. To be as frank as possible, the water was uncomfortably far away. After making her way to the top, Ash joined me at the edge, and she, too, had no intention of ever leaving this platform.
The dark-blue water had to have been fifty feet deep, as we could not even see to the bottom through the clear water. There was no concern of hitting anything but water. We were just worried about how hard that water would feel. Ash told me to go first. No chance, woman. We were either jumping together or we weren’t jumping at all.
At this point, we had stood up there and looked into the abyss below for far too long. That is why roller coasters are great. The time spent terrified on the opening hill is finite, and then the drop comes whether you are ready or not. We decided to chalk it up as a loss and began the difficult descent down the rocks. As we started retreating, the words of Clemence, our Airbnb host in Paris, popped into my head. She’d told us we were welcome to sit on the rooftop balcony as long as we were “not afraid of the fall.” We had to do it; we had to jump. We could not be afraid of the fall.
Ash agreed with me: if we didn’t jump, we would regret not having had the courage. We stepped up to the edge, secured our footing, held hands, and on the count of three, left the rock. As soon as we were airborne, I realized we had just made a huge mistake.
We immediately released our hands as a reflex of unequivocal fear. We were still rising in the air from our initial jump, and I saw Ash began to drop. Apparently, she does not have the hops I do. Adrenaline shot through my veins like electricity as the fight-or-flight hormone took over. It was really more of a fight-the-flight situation as I flailed my arms in a failed attempt to try to either fly or grab on to something. With no luck from either scenario, I began my descent.
The feeling of my stomach hitting my throat felt like I was missing organs in my chest cavity. After a full second of free fall, I blacked out. I had been trying to analyze the severity of my current situation and was experiencing a sensory overload. With both adrenaline and fear taking over, there was no room on my plate for “analysis.” My brain shut down like an old Windows computer with too many programs running, and I hit the water. Unfortunately for me, in my blacked-out state, I had missed the announcement: Ladies and gentlemen, as we start our final descent into the Adriatic, please make sure your legs are straight and your arms are at your sides, with your body in the upright position. Close your eyes, and be sure your bathing suit is securely fastened. Thank you for flying Kyle Air.
Ideally, colliding with water from high up is best done in “pencil” form. I hit the water in the unfortunate “open protractor” form, and consequently felt immense pain upon impact. I moved my limbs underwater to make sure they all still worked, and remembered I was not in an environment where breathing was permitted. I kicked my way to the surface of the dark-blue water and emerged after a few seconds. I immediately looked for Ash and saw nothing but the area of bubbles she had entered moments earlier. Right before I planned on diving to look for her, she popped up, her face white with fear.
From the look on her face, I think she had had a similar in-flight experience as I’d had. She was smarter than I was, though; she’d executed a perfect pencil dive. This was why she’d been underwater so long; she must have shot in like a dart and cruised down twenty feet. We looked at each other, and when it registered we had survived this exciting yet traumatic event, we started laughing—that real gut laugh, the one where you and your best friend just cheated death.