Old man river's log

Very cool!

Saturday
I got a couple of dives in. It was nice; sidemount is becoming easier..

Sunday
The day started annoyingly. I had a delivery I stayed in to get. It turned out that the battery in my doorbell needed replacement, which meant I didn't get the delivery after all

After fixing the doorbell, I felt tired and sluggish. So I decided to go for a late climb. To my surprise, I was rather good and got a load of projects. I think my route reading has improved a bit. I flashed a v3, where looking at the start made me wonder if it needed a knee bar (it did).

Monday

I bought some Bose headphones off Amazon (£380). The delivery was crayons. To get my money back, I need to return the crayons. I have tried three return shops so far and failed in the process.
<\Rant>

I went climbing for three hours. It was fun. We did a spot of board climbing, which is definitely a weakness of mine.

I went diving this weekend. It was nice, although my dry suit neck seal failed at 28 metres depth, and I had a complete flood. Cold was an issue, finning up into the boat post dive was impossible as I had about an extra 60 kgs of water in the suit.

I went climbing today. It was good. We were supposed to train overhang, although I somehow got a v5 slab. (I think it's mis-graded.)

Pulpit Rock at Portland post dive:

I went caving this weekend. We dug a hole. We got about 7 metres down. We are in limestone now, after a bunch of lome. So hopefully we are near new cave passage.

There is a lot of construction work involved (e.g. putting up scaffolding to avoid the shaft collapsing.) ,It was really good fun; 8 hour days of hard manual graft left me wanting to do more.

We were pushing a site someone else did before us. There is apparently a small chamber coming up, followed by an unstable, terrifying squeeze followed by a bigger chamber. After that, it will be brand new passage, and presumably caverns measureless to man.

Our plan is to dig a little lower to let us put in more scaffolding to support the unstable bit.

I spent the week diving Southern reefs (mainly) and a couple of wrecks in the Southern Red Sea. It was nice; the diving was stunning.

I got some form of gastroenteritis. That added a random gambling element to the dives; pretty much all of us came down with the same thing; would anyone follow through and need a new wetsuit? (No-one did.)

I did all the dives; 19 I think. My air consumption was very low; I came up with loads of air left every dive.

My digestive issues eased on Monday. I celebrated by going climbing for 3 hours. It was good, I was in surprisingly good form. My v5 project turned out to have the crux athe top, which was a bit annoying.

I went climbing on Tuesday. It was good. I flashed a v4, which was terrifying.

I did a 1.5 km swim yesterday.

I went diving over the weekend. I was trying a new configuration (side mount) and didn't have it set up well. I was head heavy, which caused me to lose my buoyancy on a 20m dive; and go to the surface far too quickly on starting the ascent. It was quite a fast drift, which didn't help matters.

I went climbing yesterday. I was strong. I finger crimped into a divit to get two climbs; my coach said it was impressive but bonkers.

I went climbing yesterday. It was decent, I got a thuggy overhanging v5.

My main project turned into a v3, which took me at least 20 goes. I got it after 2.5 hours, by which time moving had become painful. So I called the session then.

Saturday
I shore dived Sheringham in Norfolk, doing the chalk reefs. It was lovely; 1.5 hour shallow bimble seeing flounders, crabs, squat lobster and gobies.

Sunday
Climbing. Good fun, I got some technically really difficult slab (by my low standards). Lots of pistol squats were needed. 2 hour session.

Monday
Climbing. It was supposed to be my weekly lesson. However, trains were broken so I ended up in a different gym. I started off really badly. However, after 45 minutes it started to improve, and by the end of 2.5 hours it has turned into a pretty good session.

Tuesday
Day off, so 12 mile walk and some light hangboarding with loads of pull ups.

My weight this morning was 143 pounds, the heaviest I've been in ages. My guess is a water weight fluctuation, as I ate loads of salt (anchovies, sea bass, samphire and salted nuts) yesterday.

I spent the week diving in Kinlochbervie, in a very remote bit of North West Scotland. It was lovely.

The diving was fairly standard UK hard boat fare; 2 dives a day for 6 days. (30 metres max; 1 hour max). I was pretty dived up by the end, my buoyancy, trim and air consumption were good. I got a hole in my neoprene neck seal. I tried repairing it with Black Witch, which was unsuccessful. Fortunately, if I doubled it over carefully it was dry enough. The water was 12C, so a major leak would have been painful.

I got quite a lot of walking in over the week; the best bedding a 9 mile one to Sandwood Bay.

It rained every day; the coldest air temperature was 6C. I think they was a heatwave in London.

Sunday
Climbing. A quick session, as a friend called and I ended up going to the cinema in the evening. 80 minutes, so around 40-50 minutes climbing post warm-up. I was OK, I got one v4 and a bunch of powerful v3s in my anti-style.

The film was Black Dog, a recent Chinese one. I enjoyed it.

Monday
Climbing, 3 hours. Decent. I only got one v4, again in my anti-style. It was a jump-up start; then balance to get the start holds; then a twisty jump to get two left fingers into a pocket; then a left-right leg shuffle to jump to get right hand on a bad sloper. Then it was a few more moves of thuggy overhang power to top out. Good fun.

Wednesday
Climbing, 3 hours. I went with my little brother, who does way shorter sessions than me. I broke him; he twisted his ankle towards the end. It was an existing injury, hopefully he recovers quickly.

Thursday
Lifting. Squat, bench and deadlift; with done fingerboarding thrown in. Light.

Friday
Climbing, 2 hours. Average session. The hard slab I got took about 2 minutes. Despite only having 3 holds (you chimney up volumes for most of it.)

Saturday
12 mike hike. I'm unfit, I was tired at the end of it.

Sunday
Swimming, 1 km.
Climbing, 2 hours. I was a bit out of form. Maybe climbing 5 days out of 7 was a bit ambitious; I'm going tomorrow as well.

Monday
Climbing. I pulled a muscle on Sunday, so I didn't go very hard.

Wednesday
Badminton. The first time I had played in years. Good fun. 1 hour.

Saturday
I went sightseeing with my niece in London, so got around 20,000 steps during the day (neither of us like the Tube.) I then went climbing in the evening. 3 hour session. It was odd; I started really badly. However, after 2 hours I suddenly improved. I got 4 of my projects in the last hour; mainly hard v3s but one v4.

Sunday
I had a quick, easy dive (50 minutes, 10 metre max depth) to test out some new equipment.

Monday
Climbing. 2.5 hours.

It was a training session; we concentrated on getting relatively easy climbs perfect(no hesitation; no readjustments). It was fun.
At the end. I did done projecting, and got a powerful overhanging v4 which I've tried many times before.

Wednesday
Climbing, 2.5 hours. Good fun, I stared badly but improved as the session progressed.

Saturday
Walked up Snowdon. It was nice; it's an easy walk. I last climbed it around 10 years ago; my fitness is way better now. It was really crowded, so I would run up the bits I was on to overtake; realise I'd let my mates behind; and have a wait before the next 5 min sprint.

Sunday
Caving in a mine. This was also really good. It had a couple of easy pitches and loads of zip lines.

Monday
Climbing, endurance training. Good fun, I was destroyed afterwards. 2.5 hours.

Wednesday
Climbing, 3 hours. Decent, I got a v5.

Thursday
Lifting; I am weak

Friday
Swimming, just 1km as I went before breakfast and was time constrained.

Saturday
Caving. This was our dig. We got 8-9 metres down, and gave reached a boulder choke.

Sunday
Caving. A boulder fell out of the wall in the dig, and the whole thing feels like it will collapse on your head if you go to the bottom. So we have started digging from the top again to plop in extra scaffolding to hold it together.

The caverns measureless to man needs to wait a bit longer to reveal themselves.

We did a quick cheeky cave (45 minutes to see it all) en route back to the car.

Climbing. 2.5hours. It was good; my first ever v5 flash. It was a balance-y slab with not many, tiny holds mikex apart.

I went climbing on Wednesday. Towards the end of the session, I slipped on a slab and banged my right ankle on a volume on the way down. It was reasonably badly twisted.

A friend at gym recently twisted his, and lives nearby so had some crutches I borrowed. I can now walk short distances without crutches without pain, so it's getting better.

Terrible news. Get well soon.

Thanks Rich.

I managed about 2 miles walk today, my random guess is 2 weeks until I can run and jump again. I'm scuba diving next weekend, which could be interesting.

I did something similar in lockdown. I didn't fancy going to A&E in a pandemic, so I bodged crutches out of two brooms. It took 3 days before I could walk without them, and I was functional after about a week.

Hopefully the recovery will be quick again this time.