Cliff-Jumping in Croatia

6:30AM. I'm staring at my ceiling, in bed and wondering if I want to get up for a 7AM run with Danny, Patty, and Jason. The day before they'd invited me to join them in their jog up the steep hill toward Old Town Dubrovnik, at which point they would make a break from the road to find the cliffs the Semester at Sea pre-port team had warned us to avoid--on a previous trip a student had leapt to the Adriatic only to be flown home due to major back injuries.

Like most pre-port advice, many students had already disregarded the message and taken the leap, the first day, with rave reviews. And now that teachers were joining in I finally decided, to my great delight, that I would too. If my friends jumped from a bridge...

Running to the cliff, a local boat-dog joined the pack, following us all the way, barking and biting at people who blocked our path. After I jumped into the water, he did too (from the lower rocks) and subsequently swam up to each jumper, perhaps to check if we were OK. After all the jumping, our dog followed us back to a cafe near our ship, barking all the way, and left us when we sat down for our morning pick-me-up.