When you go to Salobreña’s beaches, it’s the Peñón that catches you eye, even from the La Caleta and the river mouth, so no wonder people clamber all over it.

That’s not a problem, but jumping off the top is. In fact, it can get you a 3,000-euro, that because kids and adults who never grew up, jump off the highest point into the water, regardless of the rocks below the surface.

It’s been a tradition; a rights of passage for young boys to do this going back decades, probably generations even. However, the Town Hall is determined to stamp it out. Whether this drive is woke or just common sense is for the reader to decide.

This summer, lifeguards on duty on Playa La Guardia, have been tasked with not only preventing people from drowning but also reporting to the Policía Local if people are jumping off this whale-back rock — the western end is where the diving point is; nobody jumps off the other side.

Now the lemming period is at its highest during the Fiestas de la Virgen del Carmen. Last year about a score of adolescents around the age of 16/17 threw themselves (and each other) off the top, but this years there were only five incidents, which has a lot to do with their having to explain to their parents why they have just lost 3,000 euros.

The biggest problem is out-of-town kids on holiday, having watched locals diving into the sea, deciding to do it themselves, but without the knowledge that the locals have about where the submerged rocks are. The last death, some years back, was precisely a tourist from inland Spain.

OK, the police offers don’t go nuclear most of the time (get the fine book out) but give them stern warning about the danger. The fine book does get a breath of fresh air when it is a ‘repeat offender.’

As for the lifeguards, in previous summers they packed up and went home at 20.00h, so between then and nightfall was a time to jump without fear of getting caught, but now the lifeguard service extends to 22.00h each evening on peak days.

(News: Salobreña, Costa Tropical, Granada, Andalucia)

Keywords: Peñon, Whale-Back Rock, Jumping Over, Submerged Rocks, Fines, Rights Of Passage, Local Lads, Out-Of-Towners, Lifeguard Service, Policia Local

news, andalucia, granada, costa tropical, salobrena, peñon, whale-back rock, jumping over, submerged rocks, fines, rights of passage, local lads, out-of-towners, lifeguard service, policia local