My heart pounded as the ground dropped from beneath my feet. Why the heck did I shake his hand? I was potentially risking my life and my desert. This was one sticky situation.
…
When we reached the top we were all amazed at the view. It wasn’t quite lunch time yet, but we decided to eat anyways. As we sat around eating our peanut butter and jelly bagels, we discussed who would be allowed to jump. Anyone 13 or older could jump anything and anyone younger had to stick to the smaller cliff. Of course everyone said they would jump with no problem what so ever, but it is a much different story when you got up there.
Once every one was warmed up by jumping off the small cliff one of the councilors decided to jump off the big cliff. Before he jumped we dropped a rock down and it took about 3 seconds to hit the water. Unfortunately the edge of the cliff was rounded so we couldn’t just look over the edge. When he finally decided to jump he took off. 1-2-3…splash, he hit the water. It seemed like it took forever before he came up for air and yelled that he was all right.
Unfortunately, I thought about it and couldn’t make the jump. When everyone got to the top again I said that I would go but I didn’t. After three agonizing hours of waiting I finally decided that this was it. I picked up speed and then…stopped. This was a lot more nerve racking than I thought it was going to be. And then one of the new kids came. Unfortunately, I truly hated this kid. He started chanting stuff like “You’re a chicken” and he called me a hypocrite because I made fun of him for hesitating about jumping. The next thing I heard was the sound of wind passing my ears.
When I first jumped off the cliff everything was so serene. All the tree tops seemed to shrink away as I rose into the air, if felt as if I was floating in the air. The trees started falling away from me. That moment was gone. When I looked down all I could see was the dark green of the water below. The water stared me down like a monster about to devour me with its bottomless pit of a mouth. The rush of air was exhilarating and frightening at the same time. The water kept on growing close and closer until it was almost a foot away from me. I almost forgot to straighten out my feet before I hit the water. With no time to spare I straightened out my legs at penetrated the water.
Under the water seemed like a completely different universe from the one that I had just encountered. While I was under the water I experienced complete tranquility. It was a complete silence like I had never felt before. I opened my eyes and all I could see was darkness all around me. I only got to enjoy the silence and relaxation for a moment before remembered that I had to go up to get some air. On the way up I replayed that event many times before I surfaced. When I finally came up to take a breath I saw the smiling faces of everyone around me.

…

I was still shaking from all the adrenalin an hour later when we went back to the camp sight. That night we all ate dinner while recapping the events of the day. We also talked about how not a word of this was to be spoken at camp. After we all vowed not to say a word at camp we received our dessert. For some reason my dessert tasted just as good. It was either because I had just jumped off a cliff or because we all got an extra helping. Either way that was one of the most exciting days in my life.