Finger boarding 10 hours after a hard climbing session is um... interesting. I'm enjoying the two times a day approach, so I'll continue with it.

Friday
Climbing, 2 hours. Another good session.

Saturday
I dropped my drysuit off for repair. I used the train to get there, and shared a junction with Twickenham at Clapham Junction. There was a rugby tournament on, so it was quite busy.

So I decided to come back a different route. I walked along the Thames Path from Chiswick to Richmond, where I went through Richmond Park. I then got lost, and went to Putney Heath (I was aiming at Wimbledon Common).

I decided to climb some trees at this point. One tree had a hard dyno. I failed to make it about three times, and somehow covered my arm in blood on the final go. I seem to be very mature now I am in my 50s: I moved onto an easier tree at this point.

After this, I found Wimbledon Common and made it home for tea and medals.

Fitbit reckons it was 15 miles. It was a lovely Spring day.

I went climbing yesterday. It was odd, I felt really sleepy and sluggish. (I napped on the train en-route to the gym, which is the fist midday nap I've had in over five years). However, once I got moving I was not too bad. I wasn't brilliant, but I wasn't terrible. I got a couple of v4s, flashed a few v3s and actually had decent power on overhangs.

3 hour session.

Long time no log...

Wednesday
I got up early, as I had a 6 a.m. flight to Malta. I am a bit incompetent at international travel these days: I don't do it very frequently. I managed to drop my passport onto an open pocket on my drysuit bag whilst checking the bag in. So I didn't quite make it abroad.

I went for a lovely, very hilly 26 mile walk in Surrey instead. I managed 6 miles before realising breakfast was a good idea.

Thursday
I rebooked a flight. This time it was in the evening, so I went for a climb beforehand. I was Ok, not outstanding.

Friday


3 dives. The first was a purpose built tugboat. It looked nice, but it was a long swim and some folk hooned through their air getting there. So we turned around pretty much on getting there.

The last was a night dive, which felt a bit claustrophobic as loads of us were on a small wreck.

Saturday
3 more dives. The first two were on Gozo, the Blue Hole followed by the Inland Sea. These were stunning; truly amazing dives. The night dive was nice; it was the reef near the tugboat.

Sunday
Final two fives on Comino. Both dices were really nice; the second was a sea cave which is a big swim-through.

Monday
I stopped off for a quick climb on the way home from Gatwick.

My main drysuit was in for repair, so I was on the back-up. It worked OK; I was damp due to a hole in a dry glove. I had spares, so no harm was done.

I have slight pain in my right index finger, so I elected not to climb today.

I tweaked a finger, so Monday was my last day's climbing of the week. It seems fine now, though.

I lifted a couple of times in the week, the details are lost to posterity.

Saturday
Caving. We did Northern Lights at Ogof Fynnon Ddu top entrance. It's quite a big trip; I think it normally takes people 7 or 8 hours. There were just two of us, and we're both reasonably fit, so we got a bit of wriggle on on and got it done in about 5 hours. I got stuck for a couple of minutes at the top of a climb where it turns into a squeeze to get into the Northen Lights.,but I eventually twisted the right way.

Sunday
We meandered up and down a valley, where a friend had found what appears to be a new cave. It was very tight; he managed to wriggle through to link it up with another cave. It was too narrow for me, although I did get about 15 metres into the 30m squeeze. I suspect I'm the fourth person ever to see this passage. Here is me entering the system:


We spent a few hours wandering up and down the valley after this going into small caves.

F that!!! Some of your pics trigger a claustrophobia response in me beyond what I am aware I even have. That one is a brutal no thank you!

It's odd, I find caving, climbing and scuba all very chilled out activities. I was a nervous type when I was young. I think I must have used up my reserve levels of fear then.

I am scuba in diving in the Scilly Islands at the moment. It is lovely.

We had a couple of non-diving days to start. I did a lot if walking, averaging around 16 miles a day. We also bought bouldering mats, and so have had a few goes at outdoor bouldering on the local granite. It has been superb.



Yesterday, we dived the Cita (a container ship, max depth about 30 metres, time about 50 minutes); then a reef dive.

Today, the boat's compressor broke so we only got one dive. It was on (I think) the Lady Charlotte, a wreck near the Cita. It was properly nice.

Hopefully the skipper will get a new compressor tonight, and the diving can continue.

I found some random holes to crawl in, for example on an ancient ruin.

The compressor was replaced, do diving continued.

Tuesday
We dived the Plympton and Hatha; two wrecks at right angles.
Second dive was a reef; it was kind of stunning.

Wednesday
3 dive day! This is unusual for the UK
We did:
The Italia, a truly stunning wreck.
A seal dive. We got a bit a seal action, but not too much.
The Colossus, a very broken up historical wreck.

Thursday
We dived Tremanemanemamine (spelling nailed. Probably.) in the morning. It was stunning; really nice reefs with loads of anemone and nudibranch.

We tried to do the MiniHaHa in the afternoon, but failed to find it so had a reef dive instead.

I went bouldering in the afternoon, finding an ultra-exposed stunning set of boulders.

Here is the dive site:

Friday was the last day's diving.

We did the King Codwallen, which I've probably mis-spelled. It was nice; 63 minute dive at 43 metres, so a bit hairy assed profile wise. (I took my stage.)

We then did a reef, where I saw a dog fish, which I actually caught on film for a change.

Remember to like, comment, and subscribe. I upload once a year or so on average.

My logging has been weak. I've been pretty active, but I have a slight tweak to (I think) an A4 pulley, which means my climbing has been poor.

My last session was on Wednesday, 3.5 hours. It was probably too long; I couldn't walk afterwards.

I started well; flashing a bunch of v3s in my warm up. But it went downhill from there very sharply. Fitbit revkined it was 250 active minutes; so it was all a bit like hard work.

I went diving this weekend. It was OK.

The second dive was the British Inventor, a wreck in about 20 metres. I drove the boat, and nailed the shot which was right on the wreck.

It was a nice dice at the start with loads of life. My buddy was a bit less experienced, and he wanted to blob up. It took him a while; I picked up two minute deco while he did his thing. He decided to be 2 metres above me during this, for some reason. That made it really hard for me to see what was happening. He got into a bit of flap, and started to ascend really quickly.

When I reached the deco stop, I couldn't see him. He finned down and came into view, clearly very uncomfortable. I didn't understand the issue, so I tried to hand him my reg (I thought he may be out of air .) This wasn't the issue (it turned out he couldn't dump from his drysuit; but I have no idea what the signal for that is or how to solve it.) Whilst this was happening, we bobbed above the ceiling for my deco stop.

I spotted and quickly went back down. He vanished again. I normally like to do a 5 minute safety stop after deco, with a very slow ascent. But I was worried he wouldn't be at the surface, so I only did 1 minute.

He was at the surface, and fortunately fine. Fortunately, I was fine as well with no bendy symptoms.

After this fun, I tried charging my car which failed at 8 different chargers. My car seems to have a new fault.

I decided not to dive on Sunday, so I tried a slow AC charger. This worked, so I did a 10 mile walk whilst getting enough electricity to get home. ( I will have a parking ticket from this, as it was 90 minutes maximum at the car park in question.)

I then went climbing when I got home. It took a while to get going, but it turned into a decent session, with very many v3s and 3 v4s.

I went climbing on Saturday. We did some very easy sport climbing in Portland. Dorset. It was fun. We got a decent morning in, and then the heavens opened so we ended and did a hike.

We went bouldering on Sunday. It was also fun. Our destination,(Portland Bill) was at high tide, which drastically cut down on available routes.

I went climbing on Monday, with a spot of indoor bouldering. I was terrible; maybe I've been climbing too much. My Fitbit reckons I got its target active minutes (150 minutes) in this session alone.

Friday
Climbing. This was was really good fun. I was in form on both slabs and overhangs. I got 4 new routes.

Saturday
I intended to have a rest day. But I got bored, so after lunch, I did a 21 mile walk. So as rest days go, it was a minor failure.

It was nice; there were many deer in Bushy Park. It drizzled for most of the walk .



Sunday
I was supposed to go diving out of Swanage, Dorset. But we were blown out.

So we dived a quarry instead. I needed to leave my house at 6 a.m., to get there on time. The bottom of the quarry was cold and silty (it was 8 Celsius at 28 metres.)

I went climbing yesterday. It was a pretty poor session, although it was good fun. I did flash a v4 slab, which was truly terrifying. (Most v4s I get are probably softly graded. This one actually felt quite hard; I made some good decisions en route.)

I lifted today, doing:
Hangboarding, quite light as I had an A4 pulley injury recently. (I ignored it, and it seems to have gone away.)
Finger curls. Again light, I went to 40 kgs.
Bench, light (notice a theme?), 40 kgs, 3 sets of 10.
Squat, light, 60 kgs, 3 sets of 8.

I've been pretty active, but terrible at logging.

I went climbing today, for 2.5 hours. It was fun.

The gym (Vaux East) changed from grading by colour buckets to individually graded climbs with little correlation between the old colour scheme and grade.

I got two v4s. Both were fairly major projects, the longest taking half an hour. (It was slab, and the foothold was awful.) I got a shedload of v3s, and 2 further v4s were very close.

I went climbing. It was fun. I was in form. 2.5 hour session; Fitbit thought it was 150 active minutes.

I got one graded 7a (around V6). It's clearly mis-graded; it was more like an easy V2.

I have been very active recently, but crap at logging.

I went climbing on Thursday. It was fun. I got a couple of v4s and a shed load of v3s.

I went caving over the weekend. We did the through trip from OFD1 to Cwm Dwr on Saturday. It was raining heavily, so the streamway was very active. It only started to rain overnight; any longer and the trip would not have been viable. It was fun;a very active 5.5 hour trip.

Sunday was a gentle bimble through the Maze in OFD 2. It is a stunning bit of cave; I'd not been there before. 4 hour trip.

Wednesday
I went climbing. I was in very good form, it was fun. I hadn't been to this gym for a while, and so some routes had been reset but some of my projects were still up. I did well at both; getting two v4s in the existing set which have been long term projects.

Friday
Lifting
Pull-ups. 3 sets of 10.

Finger boarding; I was pretty strong at these (which is consistent with my recent climbing sessions having been good).

High bar back squat. 75 kgs (around 1.25 body weight), 3 sets of 8. I had a pause at the bottom on them all.

Barbell curls.

Finger curls (60 kgs), which felt heavy.

Saturday
Climbing. It was fun, I got most of the v3s at the gym I was at (the Arch in Bermondsey.) I'm not sure if any were v4s, but probably at least a couple were.

2.5 hour session. I walked a lot to get to the gym ,(around 10 miles in total) and at the end, it felt like I may have pulled a muscle in my glute. I ignored it and it went away, fortunately.

Sunday
10 mile hike. My glute hurt at the start, but cleared up after the first 400 metres or so.

I've been pretty active, but I seem to have failed to log anything here.

I did a diving trip to the Orkney Islands, just North of mainland Scotland. I cadged a lift off a friend. His engine warning light came on near Stoke on the Friday. We called local garages, and one could see us. It turned out to be a hole in the turbo pipe. The garage didn't have a spare but, but he whacked a bit of exhaust pipe in as a temporary fix. The mechanic said it would last a lifetime.

It broke 200 miles later, in Cumbria. Fortunately, it was 3.45 p.m. so garages were still open. We found one that did van hire, do we hired a van and left the old van with them for a repair.

So we got to the diving safe and sound. The diving was lovely. The longest I did was about 75 minutes at 42 metres (a lot of which was deco, I switched onto a bottle of 50% oxygen to make it a bit faster.)

We aimed to dive North of the Flow. We got some dives in, but the weather came in and so we needed the shelter of the Flow for the last few days. The visibility outside the Flow was stunning, but only about 1m inside it. That made the German First World War wrecks a bit sporting.

We couldn't reach the garage in Penrith on the last Saturday in time. So we booked an Air B&B on the West Coast of Scotland and shore dived Loch Long on the Sunday. It was fun; bizarrely there were loads of squat lobster who had chosen to live in jam-jars. We came home on the Monday.

Here's a random Orkney sunset

Monday
Climbing. A training session. I was terrible, but the session was fun

Wednesday
A new yoga place has opened near me, so I did an hour.

Thursday
Climbing. It was fun; I was in form. I got a load of new projects. I also got a 6b+ graded one, which is quite rare for me at this gym. It was an utterly terrifying slab.

Saturday
Climbing. Another very good session, with a mixture of successes on scary slab an thought overhangs. Some of them were grade v4, but I think they were easier than that.

Fitbut reckons I'm on more than 600 active minutes for the week so far, which isn't too shabby.

I got a cold. I decided to recover by having a three hour climbing session on Monday. It was fun; I was reasonably powerful. I found a bathang in a cave. I didn't really need to rest at that point; but I was so comfortable I hanged upside down for a good while.

Today. I did an hour's yoga.

It was my birthday. (I'm 52 now).

So I went scuba diving over a long weekend in Cornwall. It was cracking. On the Sunday, we had:

Thornback rays, blond rays, cuttlefish, dogfish (including a baby), angry crabs pursuing us, loads of shrimp, scallops, lobster and conger eels.

We were blown out yesterday, do I go home early enough to go climbing. I was terrible.

I did a short run (around 5k) today. Oddly, I didn't hate it .

Sunday
I went climbing. It was fun. I was in pretty good form. 2.75 hours.

Monday
I went climbing. It was training, we focused on intensity. I was in OK form; the session was flat out. 2 hours.

Wednesday
Climbing, 3 hours
It was a mixed session.

I was terrible at slab, which I'm normally good at. I was good at dynos and thuggy overhangs, which I'm normally terrible at. There was one dyno I was very pleased to get; quite a far jump with a single hand catch.

Saturday
Caving.
The logistics didn't pan out for a massive trip. So we had a pootle around the top of Swildon's; going down every hole to see how it all linked up. It was damp.

Caving.
We did Waterwheel Swallet.

It's a sporting little cave. You descend steeply to a phreatic tube, about 80 cm diameter. The water level in the tube was reasonably low, although it had a couple of ducks where I needed to hold my breath. The tube is about 35m long.

This leads to a 7m pitch to a pool. Which has been dammed to maintain a constant 2.5m depth.

One of our group got in a bit of a flap on the ascent from the pool. I swam below her to push her out a bit. I was there a while, and it got a bit nippy. We all got out safely.

I have been active recently, but crap at logging.

Yesterday was a scuba dive on South coast. 27m deep, 45 minutes with 7 miutes deco. It was pitch black wit loads of crud in the water.

This made all the local critters behave really differently. Two lobsters came running towards our torches, for example. I think they thought it was night.