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Units are pretty common in the UK. One guy on the boat bought his; two more have them but chose to go open circuit. Scillies diving is pretty recreational, so open circuit works OK. It's never really appealed to me as I'm a bit chaotic, and they tend to kill non-careful owners. (The most common brand here is AP, which come…
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My equipment for this was a bit basic; 2 sidemount 12 litre cylinders filled with air. The wreck is on a slope, so we weren't in the depths for long; the average depth was 19 metres. There is a compressor on the boat; but it's just air so if we wanted nitrox or mix we'd have needed to bring a rich bottle and whip it. My…
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Monday We did a wreck, the King Cadwaller. This has loads of nudibranch and lots of giant crayfish. 34 metres, 42 minutes. Then we did a seal dive. It took half an hour to get to the right spot, but they were quitex playful when we found them. 23 metres, 47 minutes. Tuesday We did the Italia, another wreck. It's one of the…
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I am scuba diving in the Scillies. Friday I drove down. This could have gone better; I got just past Stonehenge when I realised I had forgotten to pack my BCD. I turned around; came back home and had a quick run to get rid of pent up energy. I got to Penzance at 1.30 a.m. Saturday We dropped out dive kit off at 7 a.m. for…
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I had 2 back to back all day work meetings in Hove, so I was overnight in a hotel. I decided to go bouldering in the evening. The gym turned out to 3 miles from my hotel, and the meeting venue was 6 miles. I walked both directions to the gym and one to the venue (I was running late, so got a train in the morning.) So I got…
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My mum typically wakes up at about 10 each day… I'm pretty sure I will once I retire, unless I have an early ropes off. Diving takes precedence over comfort.
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Today was a rest day, so I walked 12 miles and swam just over 1 mile. My view is that therapy may well have benefits for those with something clinically wrong; that goes way outside my experience and expertise. I'm less convinced there are benefits for someone without clinical symptoms. Exercise, and also not being obese,…
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I'm mid 50s, not mid 40s. I was 5 years older than anyone else at the comp, so my age comment was supposed to be comparative (although I probably didn't convey that properly.) I was certainly relatively unathletic until my (at least) my thirties. I went to a working class state school in England, and athletic ability was…
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I entered a climbing competition. To my amazement, I was joint winner. I was also the oldest there by a good 5 years or so.
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I entered a climbing competition. It was a team thing; my team won. I got a v4 in the final section which made all the difference. I'm old, and not very athletic, so I'm pretty happy with how it all planned out.
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Climbing, 2.5 hours. I started really badly. There was a V3 slab that took 45 minutes, but I eventually got it. (The crux was a reverse flag letting me reach a small crimp.) After that, it was a pretty good session with a couple of v4s.
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Tuesday Swam 1 km. I decided to see if I could do 50m underwater; I failed. I let myself down, my family down, my country down.... (I managed 40m).
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Apparently Kelloggs have made mathematically challenged advertising for some revolting concoction of theirs. The aim is apparently to maximise the surface area to volume ratio to maximise glaze. They essentially claimed spheres are better than torus; this is false. In fact, a sphere is the worst shape (although proof of…
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Saturday Diving. We got a couple of harbour wreck dives in. The wind was strong, so we couldn't do anything more ambitious. Sunday Another harbour wreck. Cracking dive; loads of nudibranch and flatworms. Monday Climbing I have a competition on Saturday; this was practice. It was good; I got four v4s including a monkey-bar…
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Wednesday Climbing, 2.5 hours. I had a technical v4 project I started towards the start of the session and got right at the end. Starting required a minor dyno to a drop knee(right hand and thought foot were on the climb, left hand smeared for balance on the wall, left leg jumped). This left me slowly move my left hand to…
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Climbing. I went backwards on one of my main projects (a v4 where I was always getting to the final move last week; this week I fell off the penultimate other than that.) But I did well on the other climbs, so overall it was pretty good, getting three v4s and doing well on a v5.
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Saturday Scuba diving. The forklift that launches our boat was broken, so we're did a couple of shore dives instead. They were lovely; 12 metre max, so shallow; 1 hour each. We saw 2 octopus, many cuttlefish, and a dogfish. Sunday We went to Swanage pier for more shore diving, but the visibility was terrible so we…
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Tuesday Lifting, hangboarding, and some shoulder mobility stuff Wednesday Quick climb; less than an hour as I went to a comedy night afterwards. It was decent; I actually got everything I tried (so maybe I should have tried harder). One V4.
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Climbing. I was in form; I session flashed a few previous projects and got a v5 long term project. (I suspect I may go too frequently; some time off last week was beneficial.)
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Saturday Caving. We did P8, a little cave with a couple of pitches. Good fun, about 5 hours underground. Sunday More caving. We did the tourist trip at Peak Cavern, an easy 4 or 5 hour bimble. There's a Tom Scott video in this cave where he fails to get through the first obstacle, for sone reason. It's a very minor duck.
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Climbing. I was supposed to meet up with some friends afterwards, so the plan was to only go for one hour. I had so much fun that I let them know I couldn't make it, and stayed for 3 hours. I was in pretty good form.
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More caving. We did Shakespeare's cave in Wales. It is allegedly what inspired Shakespeare Midsummer's Night Dream as home of the faeries. (Appropriately, the lad I did the cave with is currently playing Puck in an opera.) I wore a 3 mil shortie wetsuit under my caving oversuit. It was hideously inadequate. There are 4…
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Cardio day for me too. I went caving. We were planning on a huge trip, but one of the group was struggling. So we didn't get to the destination. 7 hours underground; 8 hours total. Loads of crawling; it was a very tight cave. It was really pretty.
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Wednesday 12 miles walk and a sauna. I managed 2 minutes in the ice bath post sauna, which is good for me. I've been practicing my breath holds in the hot spa thing, I 'm up to 2.5 minutes. Thursday Climbing, 2 hours. I was decent on strength-based overhangs, but actually not firing on all cylinders for slab; normally it's…
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Monday Climbing, I was poor; gravity was high. 2 hours. Tuesday Climbing, 3 hours. It was fun; gravity had returned to normal. I got many of the routes I fell off the day before. No v5s but quite a few v4s.
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I've only complained to the Advertising Standards Authority once. MacDonalds had a campaign where you could choose from a list for drinks, burger, sides etc. They claimed it was something like 28,476 possible combinations. Simple combinatorics proved this was hugely inflated, and for good measure I back solved for the…
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It was stunning weather, so I did a medium length walk: my house to Dorking, with the train back. 6 hours, 18 miles and around 750 metres ascent. (I made the route up in the fly: My house to Epsom Downs racecourse; then to Walton on the Hill; cross the M25 near Kingswood; turn right onto the North Downs Way; leave it to go…
