Hols...

As per usual when i'm going on holiday, we ended up at airparks ridiculously early, dumped nat's car at and got on their bus to the airport (effortless and very cheap, however I always get a bit edgey leaving nice shiny vehicles at places like this).

After a tedious but on time flight we landed at Male international which is built on a man-made island. A quick bus journey saw us arrive at the Maldivean Air Taxi lounge. Our bags were sent off via boat to arrive a few hours after us. We then had a stupidly long (supposedly very short) wait for our transfer, by the time four hours had passed we both started getting moody. After this 16 of us were put on one of their planes (a canadian twin otter), this one was old and has a worrying amount of rust staining of every rivet in sight.

Take off was fun but the seaplane was damn noisy so the novely soon wore off. The pics above were taken through the plane windows, so as you can probably tell it was a damn nice day. Or so we thought.....
As we came into land a massive storm hit, turning the sea less than calm! The usual approach to the island (when down) involved a narrow track between the coral, but as we not couldn't see the island (about 150m away) the pilot decided to anchor us to a small floating platform where we sat for a long time, long enough for most of the passengers to be feeling very sick, Natalie included.
Eventually a boat was sent and we begun the tricky procedure of getting out of the plane onto a rocking, small and wet platform onto a rocking wet boat. At this point I was pretty nervous, I'd only had my frame off a little over a week and didn't like the prospect of slipping over one bit. The farce continued when we tried to moor to the pier as ropes were thrown to people on the pier as we watched them promptly continue off into the sea as some bright spark hadn't attatched them to anything first. After another hour (not kidding) of this, we were finally there, not too happy and bloody soaked. (Apart from it taking another day and a bit for our case to turn up i'm glad to say this was the only crappy part of the holiday)

We got to our room, dumped the stuff and headed to dinner, the selection of food and drinks was simply amazing. There was everything you could want and it was all really nice.

The next day the weather was nice again and we both followed the age old British Tradition of turning a nice shade of lobster! The rest of the week came and went with much of the same, intense sun followed by a few minutes of intense storm, lots of eating, plenty of drinking and general laziness (Although the on-island gym proved to be decent enough and I think I only missed two days in the entire trip?!?)

Sat night came and it was time for the weekly CRAB RACE, now this was pure genuis, something i'm surpised didn't feature in phoenix nights. The guy organising the race stood on the stage in front of us and announced that "I have just finished servicing myself in the main restaurant" after this guests bought crabs (the auction was in Carlsberg and not any kind of currency) which they were then allowed to name (one guy called his fish lips, the organiser then in his best english asked the crowd [unknowingly i hope] whether or not "We have fish lips?". The crabs were then raced in groups of three from the center of the rope circle (piccie above) to the outside, the winning crab was the one that climbed out of the circle 1st, this was done until only three crabs remained and it was time for the final.
To the (extremely loud) sound of 'Darude - sandstorm', the crabs raced, very surreal, the winner was then presented with 96 cans of carlsberg...
Above is a pic of the water villa's, these looked extremely nice, massive plasma tv, jacuzzi on the veranda, a bit pricey though...

The sea planes were of great interest to me and everybody else with a camera, I guess its similar to seeing crazy foreigners snapping at black cabs in london.
Nat and I both spent loads of time snorkelling off the end of the pier, seeing lots of weird and wonderful fish, a turtle, sea snakes, sea cucumbers, lots of rays and a nasty looking eel....
The islands had loads of fruit bats on it, the first time I realised that it wasn't just a bloody big crow that had flown in front of me I needed a spare pair of trousers. Really good to watch them swinging about in the trees. (I'm getting bored of writing now, sorry for the ever decreasing level of enthusiasm within the writing).

Nat managed to find a lizard in our outside bathroom thing that didn't move much and spent loads of time snapping away, pretty good picture I reckon.
Me pulling my best "Think like Arnold, Be like Arnold" pose, it fealt appropriate when covered in sun tan OIL (not cream)...

Like I've already said the food was good, but one night was the resorts anniversary so the food was even better as you can see by the gleeful look on Nat's face by the cake.



The chefs all marched through the restaurant and lit that, (its the name of the island).
After going night fishing, and not catching anything other than coral and other people's lines we decided to go again, this fishing involved no rod, just a bit of line (wrapped around a block of wood) and a hook, with you hauling the (thin) line back in with your hand....

I took a picture after I caught my first fish (the LHS one) as I doubted i'd get anything else, I was very wrong...
After the sun went down it was like hook-a-duck, natalie ended up with a final tallie of 4...


With myself finishing with a might 5 catches + one octopus, the first ever to be caught by our fisherman in deep water (supposedly you usually catch them in the shallows by hand, you stalk them, grab their head and turn them upside down as they can't do a thing about it)... Most of the fish we caught were Red Snapper's, we were told these fish were extremely exepensive, when I asked how much I was told around 15 US $ for the entire fish...Different worlds.

Above is the turtle we saw, the pic was taken through the water using my digital point and shoot thing, but we've got some underwater kodak rubbish camera's to process so maybe we'll get a few more decent ones...

And thats pretty much it, journey back was hassle free until we heard the news about Sheffield, supposedly it was our flats that made the news. We came to a quick decision and headed up north to my family until we could get more info. A quick call to the concierge and basically the car parks and ground floor flats all floodedcompletely, probably means the car is a write off but we'll see, anyway we're heading back tomorrow, (Dobbin if your reading this whats the best way in if the M1 is shut, you've been commuting to leeds still i guess?)....

Sorry for the dull no climbing content, hopefully as of thursday I can train again. Bring it on!

Stuff....

Had my 1st and last exam of the semester this Friday, it didn't go very well at all, the computational quesiton was completely different from anything we had previously done and it confused the hell out of me leaving me flustered for the rest of the exam, never mind but hardly a good was to end four years of Uni, after that the other four members of my course (thats not too many to make it from start to finish) seemed to disappear so Nat and I went for a few drinks to celebrate/commiserate.
Went to the gym yesterday, it's feeling good and i'm feeling fairly strong at the moment which is good. I can actually shoulder press somewhere near a normal human being now. Started swimming after my sessions which didn't feel so good at first, the resistance of the water was mildly painful on my ankle, a few sessions in and it seems to be getting a lot better. I never really realised how much swimming uses certan muscles until now, swimming after a full workout everything feels toasted right from the start.
Today Nat went down the works, finally completing the last green on the circuit and doing a few of the juggy (but steep) problems on the comp wall, which was a good effort. Really can't wait to get back now, some of the problems look like they'll be enjoyable as i'm getting back to full strength.
There was a fair battle on UKB this week which basically boils down to training people against the non-believers, I can't quite fathom what it is that makes people believe its not relevant? Is it the 'I can get up some hard stuff and I can't do one' attitude, I sincerely hope not. People can believe what they want but history prooves my point, ALL the best climbers throughout time (except maybe the Dawes, he's a little 'special' anyway), trained and could do one armers. Take a look at any other sport and its obvious that training equals progression, why should climbing be any different?
Tomorrow i'm off on my Hols for two weeks to the Maldives, looking forward to lounging about somewhere other than Sheffield. When I get back its only one and a bit weeks until i'm good to start again.
Right... better pack.

The Good the Bad and the UGLY!!!

Lets start with the good: I recently found out that I have been awarded a DTA (Departmental Teaching Award) and that my PHD application was therefore successful, allowing for another 3 years of living, climbing and training in Sheffield with a wage (That has increased since I applied!), brilliant news. Nat and I recently snapped up a great deal on a holiday to the Maldives for two weeks leaving a week on monday (just after we finish our degree's), I'm not usually one for beach holidays but given the circumstances i'm more than happy to be spending a lot of time on the beach or in the sea, and the rest of the time in the on 'island' gym.

Male - Where we will be flying into, then out of by sea plane!

Our Destination

Right now the bad: Stupid holiday company sent out the tickets and they are completely wrong, not the end of the world but its a bit tight to get a decent set before we go.

Now the ugly: The beetle was in for MOT today. Naively I thought it would sail through (maybe have a minor issue with the exhaust) but oohhh no, it decided to fail in spectacular style with a total of 12 reasons for fail, the worst being that some b*stard previous owner has botched the passenger side heater channel together and the tester found it! Thats a body off job for the car and muchos £££. There also seems to be some issues with the rear brakes and headlight aligment but in comparison these are minor. The sheet I have says it failed on braking efficiency (probably due to the drivers side rear drum doing nothing at all), however the idiot tester used a kerb weight for a modern vehicle, doing it with the correct weight (1060kg not 1600kg) it passes (marginally), but with some new rear drums it should sail through (or is it the the time to upgrade to discs at the back as well? I really dont know. Anyway I just have to keep reminding myself of the reasons that I bought it and the fact that performance motoring is impossible at my age without resorting to vehcles that are nearly old enough to collect a bus pass!