A little over a week ago I was packing two bags for two different trips. One was an ice climbing trip to the Écrins that I’ll be leaving for in one week’s time, the other a sailing trip around the British Virgin Islands. I made extra sure to take the right bag less I’d end up in Antigua with a holdall filled with ice gear and no shorts.

Adrian kite-boarding. That’s the other Adrian, not me. I was taking the picture.

I’d neve been sailing before, and my experiences in boats have not been exclusively positive, a stomach-sharing stormy crossing to Lundy from Swansea burnt a particularly strong memory in my mind.  For this reason I wasn’t entirely comfortable with the idea of living on a boat for a week. I needn’t have worried however as it was a great experience, and I wasn’t sea-sick even once, though I’m not sure I owed my sea legs to the drugs I was taking or the desire not to look a fool in front of everyone else. The ‘everyone else’ consisted of the family of my girlfriend, and they did all the hard work. They impressed me immensely by demonstrating that you can have a four captains at two steering wheels speaking two languages all at the same time and still not sink. I was allowed to steer for a bit, though I think the auto-pilot was on, and I was a little suspicious that the steering wheel I commanded was pink, plastic and attached to the boat via a small suction cup. It did have a horn in the middle though. And indicators.

Audrey windsurfing.

I didn’t take my climbing shoes, and there would have only been one place with rocks worth exploring anyway. For any climber heading out that way who happens to have happened upon these words, I can honestly say The Baths on Virgin Gorda are worth a look at, though I wouldn’t head there just to climb. Here’s a photo:

The Baths at Virgin Gorda: you could probably climb here.
I’d rather race sea turtles.

The best part, for me, was trying to spot as many exotic creatures as possible. Under the water one of the first things I saw was a huge ray, calmly flying escorted by a sucker fish. Spotting enormous sea-turtles was always a treat, and the colour and variety of other fish made me feel like I was swimming around an aquarium. The only other places I’ve been snorkeling are Thailand and Kalymnos, and really, they don’t even come close. Above the land it was great to watch the  pelicans diving in to get a mouth full of fish, the giant iguanas basking in the sun, and the slightly out-of-place groups of ageing home sapiens trying to get off a dingy at the beach when the waves were crashing.

The week went quickly, and soon I was back on land, feeling slightly queasy due to the fact that the world doesn’t rock from side to side in quite the way I had become accustomed. Then it was to the air where we got the world’s most chilled-out safety briefing from the Caribbean’s Favourite airline, Liat. Liat, where the seats aren’t reclined so much as ‘laid-back’. Enjoy da view.

A wonderful bird is the pelican,
His bill will hold more than his belican.
He can take in his beak
Food enough for a week,
But I’m damned if I see how the helican.

Dixon Lanier Merritt

…

Oh and if you could all go and buy some of my books (Winter Climbing+ Trad Climbing+ and Sport Climbing+ it would be much appreciated as I’ve run out of money and it’s not as though I have an extravagant lifestyle of anything. Cheers.

www.positiveclimbing.com

New year’s day seems to be a good point to do a bit of blogging, so here we go.

In the early 1990s I set about developing a crag not far from Swansea. It was, and indeed still is, a neat little collection of stepped roofs with a steep slab at the top. I did eight new routes on it, but they were never very popular. Its unpopularity was nothing to do with the quality of the rock, but rather the protection of the routes. It was early days in the development of bolting in South Wales, and so I was under pressure not to bolt where routes could be protected by trad gear. Also, I didn’t have much in the way of money to cover the crag with bolts, and to be honest the money  consideration was of more importance than the ethical one. I harbour tall-masted suspicions that many ethical stances owe more to impecuniousness than moral fibre, but that’s a moot point.

I got in touch with some locals, namely Alan Rosier and Chris Wyatt, and was delighted to discover that the South Wales Mountaineering Club would stump up some cash to buy bolts and glue. Emails circulated thanks to the local guru of bolting, Roy Thomas, and soon a number of people volunteered to  show-up and help with the sizeable task of rebolting the entire crag.

In the week before Christmas I headed to the crag, and began the job of removing the old bolts. I was pleased to see that the stainless through bolts that had been added more recently were in good condition, even the ones that get splashed by the sea. The other bolts fared better than I had anticipated, the 10mm Petzl ‘self-drill’ bolts were in reasonable condition, though there were signs of rust, so they would be replaced. I was more surprised to see the 8mm RAWL bolts I placed were not that corroded, I had covered all the bolts I placed with Plastic Padding ‘Chemical Metal’ so as to deter anyone from stealing the bolts, and this seems to have made a big difference to how long they lasted. A couple of bolts did sheer when I tried to remove them, but most came out with just a bit of effort. The only bolts that were seriously dangerous were the ones with aluminium hangers, so worth making a mental note about that.

The following day everyone showed up, Roy Thomas and John Bullock brought their drills, bringing the drill count up to three. There were seven people at the crag in total, and the weather held off enough to rebolt/retrobolt seven routes.  With fifty bolts eagerly awaiting being stuck into the rock, we made sure that all the routes would be pure sport routes. We also added a direct start to a route I had done on trad gear called ‘Captain Hook’ the start would need a point of aid to get to the first decent holds, but after that it could be climbed at about 6c+. I returned a couple of days later to finish the job by placing the last nine bolts. I also cleaned off a line on the as-yet untouched left hand end of the crag – and am looking forward to climbing it later in the year.

A couple of days after Christmas I went to the crag and reclimbed a few of the routes that had been affected by storms removing holds, and was pleased that they could still be climbed, if maybe half a grade harder than they had been. It was good to see some of the routes getting climbed already: Chris Wyatt had a go on the newly-added direct to Captain Hook called Renaissance (6c+), and I even bumped into Dan Dyson, the person who got me into climbing way back in the late 80s.

So, a pretty good end to the year – though it was also nice to get Steve Mac’s 8a at The Castle done on the last day of the year. Hope it wasn’t a fluke…

Happy new year!

Topo at http://www.rockfax.com/publications/miniguides/item.php?id=158