LV ACAPULCO BAY ZOOM OUT
0.33


LV PEOPLE ON BEACH



LV BAY



LV STREET SCENE



GV WATER OVER ROCKS
0.53


LV DIVER OFF ROCKS AND INTO WATER



CU MAN WITH CAMERA



LV DIVER CLIMBS ROCKS AND ZOOM OUT
1.30


MV DIVER CLIMBS ROCKS



CU SHRINE PAN TO DIVER. PRAYS.



LV PEOPLE WATCH
1.39


GV DIVER WAVES



CU PEOPLE WATCH
2.02


CU DIVER PREPARES TO DIVE. DIVES. (SLOW MOTION)



LV DIVER HITS WATER



TV PEOPLE WATCH. DIVERS WALK AWAY.
2.19



Initials RJ/EML/BJ



Script is copyright Reuters Limited. All rights reserved

Background: Tourism earns Mexico 918 million dollars (383 million pounds) each year and is now the second biggest money earner for the country. The Mexicans refer to it as their "Smokeless industry"...... and young and old alike are involved in one way of other. From the sordid sidestreets of the towns on the border with the United States to the plush hotels of the "millionaires playground"..... Acapulco, Mexicans peddle their wares to the nearly two million tourists who visit the country each year. It's in Acapulco, on the Pacific coast, that Mexico's tourist trade has really found its feet.

Once the weekend hideaway for millionaire Americans, it has now become the "in" place for visitors from all over the world. With the help of American finances huge, luxurious hotels have sprung up along the sandy shores of Acapulco Bay. Sunshine all year round, sandy beaches and the Mexican atmosphere have combined to make Acapulco the major tourist resort on Mexico's Pacific coast.

Perhaps the biggest drawcard for the tourist is the high dive by local swimmers at La Quebrada "The Break in the Rocks". In 1932 the Hotel El Mirador was built overlooking a deep chasm washed into the coast line by the crashing tides of the Pacific Ocean. From the balcony of the hotel film stars and celebrities.....who were the first tourists to discover Acapulco.....could watch the divers plunge 118 feet into the water. At first it was only a sport. Beginners started with a dive of only a few feet, but as they became more expert they gradually moved further up the cliff face until the day when they made their first dive from the top platform. The plunge had to be time to coincide with rush of a breaker into the fissure or else the diver could find himself landing on jagged rocks...which would almost certainly cause death.

He also had to jump 27 feet our from the cliff to clear the rocks at the bottom which are 21 feet our from the take off. With the rush of tourists the Acapulco divers have become big business. Each spectator pays about one American dollar to watch. The proceeds go to the diver, who pays a percentage each day to a fund which maintains old divers who have been forced to retire. The diver's ages range from 14 to 76.