Cliff Diving Pros

All Monday we had been trying to figure something do to for Tuesday, and in one of the tourist brochures we found something. In order to make it in decent time, we had to get up at the ungodly hour of 8:30. By my request we had Swedish pancakes for breakfast again, and then left on our journey. We were under the impression we needed to go to the train station to trade our e-tickets for real ones(for our Wednesday train trip), but after waiting in line half an hour we found out the e-tickets were sufficient. O well, live and learn. We found the bus we needed and hopped on. It was about a 40 minute ride down to Ammodun Island, a nature preserve right next to the shore. We got the bus and walked 10 minutes to the bridge and another 15 minutes to the other side of the island. The terrain was tradiional Swedish coast, with large smooth cliffs and patches of pine/evergreen brush. (Smooth if you are in shoes, but if you are barefoot like i was my feet were a little tender after awhile. -Eric) We hiked past the entrance area that was infested with little kids, and walked to the southwest corner. We had heard this was a good place to dive off the cliffs, and were looking for the perfect spot. We finally found a good place and dropped all our junk. I went down to the water to check the temperature, and gracefully slipped on, fell on my butt, and slid right in the water. The rocks were so slick that i had difficulty getting out, and Eric was laughing histerically the whole time. We then found a small ledge, about 6 feet up, and took the plunge. The water was a brisk 16*C, or about 60*F. We barely got out on the slick rocks again. This time i realized i was bleeding from multiple places on my hands. Lesson learned and advice to potiential Atlantic swimmers: Barnicles on rocks are sharp as razor blades, watch out for them. I later discovered cuts on my stomach and legs, so watch out for those things. We decided to go higher, picking a ledge about 10 feet up. After these jumps we were freezing and bloodied, (The Barnicles really screw up the knees and hands. -Eric) so we just got some time to lay in the perfect sun, cooled by a sea breeze. It was our first real vacation from vacation, first time we had been able to swim all summer. We went around exploring the island, giving the Swedes a wide path(there were no apparel rules here, and they used their freedom). After hiking around for half an hour we went back to the bus stop and took it to the mall. We picked up a few items and went home to dinner. We went to the Swedish meeting at 7, and got ablsoultesly nothing out of it, but met some really nice people. Afterwards we had ice cream with strawberries, and went back to our apartment to pack. (Which we really didn't do. We just relaxed and watched some tele. -Eric)