Everyone has a travel dream they want to see realised, perhaps it’s dancing under the Northern Lights in Iceland, swimming with whale sharks in Mexico, or sailing the Whitsunday Islands of Australia. But for Matt, his dream was simple – to visit Italy and dive head first into the perfect blue of the Mediterranean ocean.
Too simple you may say; been there, done that. But when the guys at Contiki heard about Matt’s dream, they had an idea. See, everyone in the world has travel dreams, but these guys wanted to take it one step further. They wanted to turn Matt’s dream into a legend. Or, should we say, a Contiki Legend.
So how do you one up diving into the Mediterranean? With a little help from your friends, that’s how. Enter Devin Supertramp and his team of professional cliff diving badasses. That’s right, cliff diving. Little did Matt know he was about to dive into the Med…from half way up a cliff.
Enter possibly one of the best cliff diving locations in the world, the Amalfi on Italy’s sun drenched west coast. A total celeb hot spot (the crew may or may not have spied Bradley Copper sunning himself), the Amalfi is famed for its dramatic cliffs and stunning clear waters. I mean just look at it, doesn’t it make you want to immediately book a one way ticket?
Luckily for Contiki, Matt was up for the challenge. “I’m always keen to try and push myself when it comes to outdoor sports like surfing, rock climbing or snowboarding. I love the outdoors, but more than that, I love a challenge.”
“When I was younger, my brother and I used to jump off bridges but nothing higher than about 8 metres, so when I saw what the professionals were jumping off, I was pretty nervous. They’re so ridiculously talented, but whilst I’m jealous of what they can do I was more than happy to sit back and watch them do a double back somersault with a full twist off an 80ft cliff.”
And how did it feel once he’d jumped?
“It was such an incredible feeling. As soon as my feet left the ground my mind just went completely blank, and before I could even realise what was happening I was swimming to the surface. Everyone was clapping and cheering, and once you’re in the water looking back at the cliff you’ve just jumped off, it really puts into perspective what you’ve just jumped. My cliff wasn’t nearly as high as the ones the professionals were taking on, but it was still pretty epic.”
“The best moment of the whole experience was probably in Capri, our first location where one of the jumps was a cave that had an overhanging ledge, making it jumpable. After a few warm up jumps one of the SuperTramp professionals, Tyson, came up to the cave and said ‘Yeh, I’ll throw a gainer off this’, and without even hesitating threw the biggest gainer off this 70-80ft cliff. It was totally insane.”
So cliff diving? Yeah, we’d say that’s pretty legendary. And we’ll bet you’re pretty keen to see the proof right about now. Well lucky for you, this is it. Enjoy!