VALDOSTA — At 31 feet above the water’s surface, Manuel Mendes pauses on the metal tower. He takes a short moment before resuming his climb to a higher platform.

At 80 feet above the water’s surface, his feet barely fit on the platform. He stretches his neck. He looks down at the round pool and audience below.

People fill the metal bleachers for Wild Adventures’ production of the All-American High Dive Spectacular. Their heads push back on stretched necks. Their eyes squint with sun, blinking away South Georgia sweat, to peer at the tiny figure of Mendes 90 feet from the ground, 80 feet above the water’s surface, as he readies himself for a leap into 10 feet of water.

Lou Plocher, also a diver and Wednesday afternoon’s emcee, explains that Mendes will reach speeds of 55 miles per hour during his fall.  

He will hit the water at this speed. Mendes has a distance of 10 feet to stop his body from hitting bottom at 55 mph.

“Imagine driving your car at 55 mph,” Plocher tells the audience, “then stopping that car within 10 feet.”

Plocher directs the show’s other divers to disturb the surface of the water. The divers splash. They must. From 80 feet, Mendes sees straight to the bottom of the pool. Without the splashing, he can’t tell the surface from the floor.  But even without the surface disturbance, Mendes could probably tell by experience the pool’s top from bottom at 80 feet. Maybe even from a higher platform. He’s jumped from greater heights.

Once, already a champion diver in his native Portugal, Mendes dived 140 feet from a bridge. A reporter challenged him to make the jump. Mendes accepted the challenge then regretted it once he reached his position.

“It was very far down,” he recalls. “I had all of these people watching. I said I would do it. So I did it. But it scared me.”

While he’s been diving 27 years since the age of 15, Mendes admits he still feels a rush of fear though he makes the 80-foot Wild Adventures jump an average of twice a day, six days a week.

“It’s still scary all the time standing up there,” Mendes says. “That’s why you must have a respect for what you do. If you respect it, you are more careful. Respect keeps you from injuries. And I’m still having fun with it. Once it is no longer fun then that’s the time to quit.”

The All-American High Dive Spectacular ends with Mendes’ 80-foot dive but includes numerous dives from Mendes and four other divers from various platforms and springboards. Nathan Jimerson, Ethan Merritt, Daniel Kelley and Kobi Salinas are the show’s other divers. They perform tandem dives from the two springboards 10 feet above the water’s surface. Divers jump from the 31-foot platform.

They scamper up the sturdy, but shaky, metal rigging, making leaps from the boards and platforms that one might see in an Olympic diving event or from the sheer cliffs of Acapulco, Mexico.

They perform these dives three times daily. Jimerson performs the 80-foot dive once daily, while Mendes dives the other two shows.

Mendes no longer practices his dives. Given that he regularly dives daily and his years of experience, he does not need to practice.

“My body has the experience. It knows what to do,” he says. “It’s like riding a bicycle.”

Plocher returns to that 80-foot “bike” this week, making his first dive since last November. He also doesn’t plan to practice. Plocher will make his first dive in eight months in front of a Wild Adventures audience.

That’s later this week. This day, this show, Mendes looks down from the 80-foot platform. From this height, his fellow divers have shrunk to beige and brown ants splashing the water’s surface. The pool looks like a small, blue circle.

Between the arcs of the pool, closest to his metal tower, and a staging area, he sees the “triangles of death,” two open areas straight to the ground, if he were to veer too close to the tower, too far left or right.

Mendes leaps from the small platform. The fall lasts long enough for some viewers to audibly gasp. It lasts long enough for Mendes’ body to twist, spiral, flip, so he hits the water feet first.

Some high divers compress their bodies, make their legs rigid. When they hit feet first, they slide into the water so their bodies hit like a human bullet. Their bodies curve into the water. Their legs slide along the pool’s bottom.

Manny Mendes does not make this type of entry.

As he hits the water, he draws his legs toward his body. His thighs compress against his pelvis and abdomen. He pulls his knees toward his chest.

By halfing his height, he later explains, Mendes gives himself an additional three feet of water for his landing. He blasts through the water. His feet strike the bottom. His legs spring upward.

He rises from the water. Applause and cheers greet his ears. Mendes breathes in a lungful of air.



SHOWTIME

All-American High Dive Spectacular plays three times daily, 2 p.m., 4 p.m., 6 p.m., every day, except Monday, through Aug. 15, Wild Adventures, Old Clyattville Road. The show is included in the park’s regular admission. More information: Call (229) 219-7080; or visit wildadventures.com.