If you like to watch extreme sports then The Gran Hotel Bali was the place to be on June 5th and 6th.
The Gran Hotel Bali is the tallest hotel in Europe. Bali played host for the 8th consecutive time to the Annual EWC World Base Jumping Championships.
Base jumping is when base jumpers wearing a parachute or in some cases a wingsuit jump from a fixed structure of some sort.
Base Jumping is sometimes written as B.A.S.E. Jumping.
Written this way, B.A.S.E. is an acronym that stands for the types of fixed structures that they jump from.
B - Buildings (such as the Gran Hotel Bali)
A - Antenna
S - Span
E - Earth
It seems that when it comes to extreme sports Base Jumping is the most extreme of all the extreme sports.
The Gran Hotel Bali is the tallest hotel in Europe at 186 metres high. But the Bali still doesn't look to
me that it is high enough to launch off from.
It just doesn't look high enough for a parachute to inflate in time to safely deposit you back on Terra firma in one piece.
Jumpers were not even launching themselves from the roof of the hotel. Instead, they were jumping from the observation deck. At a height of 160 metres, the observation deck is even closer to the ground than the roof.
I know that I said that 160 metres didn't seem high enough to jump from. But I would not even be able to stand on the launch platform like these guys never mind jump off of it.
When you view the 160-metre launch pad from the observation deck, you can get some idea of how high 160 metres really is. Notice that most of the Jumpers seem to be wearing the extreme sports type of video camera fixed onto their helmets.
No doubt they will be able to re-live their jumps at leisure from the comfort and safety of their armchair as many times as they want.
Obviously, 160 metres is high enough because though these jumpers may be crazy they are not suicidal. They would not jump at 160 metres if their chutes could not open fully in time to safely deposit them back on Terra firma in one piece.
Though watching them jump you can see there is precious little wiggle room. Looking at the photo you can see that the chute drogues are pulling the chute out of its pack almost at the same time as they jump.
This is the target that the jumpers are aiming at when they launch themselves off the building.
Not all of them manage to hit the spot as you can see from this next photo.
Much to the surprise of the hotel guests who were swimming in the pool at the time, this jumper lands in the hotel swimming pool.
Though taking into account how hot it is here on the Costa Blanca at the moment, the pool might well have been his intended target.
My son has just informed me that when this jumper was a couple of hundred feet from the ground the jumper shouted "I am going for the pool." So it seems his aim was not off after all.
Two jumpers Dean Potter and Graham Hunt died recently while practising this extreme sport. This just goes to show how dangerous and extreme this sport really is.
The organisers and the jumpers taking part in the World Championship would be paying tribute during the championship to these two young men.
No matter how many precautions you take there is no getting away from the dangerous nature of this sport.
In 2013 a 22-year-old Austrian girl called Maria Steinmayr had a close brush with death. A closer brush with death than I suspect even a dare devil like her would want.
When Maria launched herself off the Bali her chute failed to open correctly. What happened next could have easily resulted in her death.
Fortunately Maria, whose failing parachute threw her against the side of the Bali, had a miraculous escape. If you want to see how lucky she was you can. It is on YouTube follow this link http://dld.bz/dGjjn
When you watch dangerous sports such as extreme base jumping you just cannot know what will happen next.
Extreme Base Jumping is extreme for a reason. What these jumpers do is extremely dangerous.
The difference between a good jump and a fatal accident can something as simple as an unexpected gust of wind.
As if this sport was not dangerous and extreme enough already, there are always some that want to take it one step further.
Some base jumpers, I am sure that they were not official competitors, were climbing onto the roof of the Bali's outside lift.
Guests arriving at the hotel from the airport stood open mouthed on the pavement. Wondering just what these young men were doing climbing onto the roof of the lift.
These unofficial jumpers rode on top of the lift roof to the top floor and launched themselves off the roof of the lift. The photo on the left is one of these unofficial jumpers floating down towards the pavement in front of the Bali.
These feats of daring drew gasps from the crowd of guests watching from 186 metres below.
On Friday, there were only nine jumps between 7am and 8 am. This was because the gusting wind. After the wind got up the organisers suspended further jumps until the wind died down. Later that day at around 8:30 pm only one more jump was made.
They call people who take part in extreme sports adrenaline junkies. I don't know what kind of high they experience, nor am I ever likely to either.
But just watching them can get the spectators adrenal glands pumping too.
There were 30 competitors from around the world taking part this year's championships. The winner was Maurizio Di Palmer from Italy who is usually known as Maury.
The photographs to the right show Maury leaping from the launch platform. If you look above and to the left of Maury you will see the small DJI phantom drone camera which was recording the jumps.
How neat is the new technology available today?
Winner of the
2015 EWC World Base Jumping Championships
Hotel Gran Bali Benidorm
Maurizio Di Palmer
If you would like to see photographs taken at this year's championships at the Bali then please go to maggs224.com
On the maggs224.com website, you will find around 180 photographs of the base jumping.
The maggs224.com website has a photo archive full of free to use photographs for your blogs and websites. There is even a special section for Spain.
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