Water depth

This is one of the most important things to check before you start jumping. If you knew the water was only 3 feet deep before you made that jump (and you were almost certainly going to break a leg or two) you wouldn’t do it. Try and gain access to the water safely by climbing down and checking it out before you start jumping from higher. As is frequently reported, the main cause of injury is from people jumping in to unknown water, having not checked depth or for obstructions just below the surface.

Tides

Directly related to water depth, the tides can make a jump safe, or very unsafe. A number of the jumps I use rely on there being a high tide to provide deep enough water. You can check tidal patterns on the Admiralty EasyTide website. By selecting a local port you can see graphs detailing high and low tides along with sunrise and sunset information. This allows you to see when you can jump more safely and consider when (if jumping later in the day to use a high tide) the sun will set.

Without going in to too much detail on tides (wikipedia does a much better job), I feel the most important thing to understand is neaps and springs. Below are two example tides at the same port on different days.

Neap

This ‘neap’ shows the variation between low and high tide is very small with quite a consistent depth.

Spring

This ’spring’ shows a large variation between low and high tide, meaning at high tide it will be much safer, but it is only available at certain times of day.

If you check tide times before heading to your jumping spot, you may save yourself a wasted trip. Arriving at low tide during a spring will mean your landing spot will be at its most shallow.

Exiting the water

Having climbed down safely to check the water you also get the opportunity to check for easy ways to exit the after you have jumped. If you are in a group you need to be sure the weakest of swimmers can swim comfortably for long enough to get to the exit point from the water.

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