Jumping off the rock, I landed into the cold, clear blue water. The salt stung the cuts on my stomach, hands and but it was all worth it.

I had asked my mom if I could jump off the Lion’s Head just last summer. The Lion’s Head is a rock at my beach house that looks exactly like the head of a lion, as you can tell from the name. It’s far out in the water and is a pain to get onto, almost everybody scratches themselves on the barnacles and/or slips on the seaweed so you can see why my mom didn’t let me go in the past. But since it’s a tradition at our beach, the answer was yes. The only problem was that my younger sister and her friends had overheard us and then wanted to come. Since they were all younger than me, it was altogether unfair! But I still got to go, didn’t I?

We snuck away when my other younger sisters weren’t watching and set off towards the flat rocks.

We sat for about five minutes staring at the barnacle-encrusted rocks we would have to walk on then the 30 feet we would have to swim to actually reach the Lion’s Head.

“I volunteer Shannon to go first!” My sister’s friend, Celia, yelled.

“Fine, I will go first,” I reply, relieved to not have to go last and wait, treading water, for the other person to get on the rock.

After my sister and her friends figured out the order in which they would swim out to the rock, I walked onto the slippery, barnacle-encrusted rock and leaped out into the water as far as I could so I wouldn’t have to swim as far. I swam to the rock sometimes feeling the sand slide between my toes since it was low tide and I could just barely touch the bottom.

When I finally did reach the Lion’s Head my sister and her friends were waiting right behind me, and they were going to have to wait longer because I wasn’t the fastest rock climber in the world. When I got on I couldn’t believe I had actually reached the rock. However, as soon as I got on it I was forced to jump off, since it was only big enough for 2 people and considering we had 4 people on it, I had to act fast. I was scared to jump because there was a ledge underneath the rock and if you didn’t jump far enough, you could get seriously injured. When I finally jumped I landed into the water without a problem. A huge hassle to get onto just for the thrill of jumping off it, and now that I realize how stupid I was to try climbing onto the rock getting cuts all over my stomach, hands, knees, and legs, I probably shouldn’t have done it. But then again, even the tiny thrill of jumping off it and becoming part of that tradition, was worth it.