Well I managed to hit the gym yesterday. It was rushed but it went well. I managed a goal of mine:
100Kg deadlift.
Now according to exrx that puts me at Intermediate level, Advanced is 145 kg and elite 185 kg (for my weight) so its nothing special but I'm pretty psyched as I know I can improve this fairly rapidly.
The strength tables show my other goal of a 100 kg bench to be completely ludicrous as it's classed as elite which:
'Refers specifically to athletes competing in strength sports. Less than 1% of the weight training population will attain this level. '
Friday 26 September 2008
Thursday 25 September 2008
Cabin Fever
Yesterday I had to wait in for the original netgear router to be picked up between 9 and 5 (good accuracy there), and today i'm stuck in again waiting for the ebuyer router to be collected. No doubt returning it will be an absolute hassle. I should of taken screenshots of the problem to prove it to them but I didn't so I'll just have to cross my fingers that its pain free.
The transfer report is edging ever closer to the standard of perfection my supervisor demands. You're required by the uni to write a 6 page report to transfer, thats it. However, I was told to write up my lit review and technical findings which puts the document closer to 106 pages. WHY?
Sorry about this but the whingey tone of the post is due to the fact that i'm due to go to the gym and having an off peak membership means I have to be out by 5, if the b*ggers don't come soon then thats it for today and I hate not being able to train when it suits.
Yesterday. after spending the whole day without uttering a word to anyone, it didn't take a lot of convincing from Nat for me to enlist on spotting duty. I was appalled to see that the comp wall has been reset with HUGE holds. Seriously. I think there are three problems that are going to 'challenge' (and I use that term loosely) the stronger of the Sheffield masses. V. Poor.
Somone asked me why I have such a downer on the place and it's simply that it had the chance to be something amazing and it turned into puntering mediocrity. The original layout had a training area and a free weights area none of which really materialised. I'd love to be able to scrap my gym membership and have somewhere else to train, boards, weights and rings but it doesn't exist and I havent got enough space here in the flat.
Last week when I climbed, two main weak areas (well 3) shone through:
Fingers - they felt crunchy and a bit lacking
Core - Weak weak weak weak
(and the age old Flexibility issue.)
These will need addressing upon re-psych.
The transfer report is edging ever closer to the standard of perfection my supervisor demands. You're required by the uni to write a 6 page report to transfer, thats it. However, I was told to write up my lit review and technical findings which puts the document closer to 106 pages. WHY?
Sorry about this but the whingey tone of the post is due to the fact that i'm due to go to the gym and having an off peak membership means I have to be out by 5, if the b*ggers don't come soon then thats it for today and I hate not being able to train when it suits.
Yesterday. after spending the whole day without uttering a word to anyone, it didn't take a lot of convincing from Nat for me to enlist on spotting duty. I was appalled to see that the comp wall has been reset with HUGE holds. Seriously. I think there are three problems that are going to 'challenge' (and I use that term loosely) the stronger of the Sheffield masses. V. Poor.
Somone asked me why I have such a downer on the place and it's simply that it had the chance to be something amazing and it turned into puntering mediocrity. The original layout had a training area and a free weights area none of which really materialised. I'd love to be able to scrap my gym membership and have somewhere else to train, boards, weights and rings but it doesn't exist and I havent got enough space here in the flat.
Last week when I climbed, two main weak areas (well 3) shone through:
Fingers - they felt crunchy and a bit lacking
Core - Weak weak weak weak
(and the age old Flexibility issue.)
These will need addressing upon re-psych.
Tuesday 23 September 2008
Climbing, lifting and all that malarkey.
The last few weeks have been very busy for me, I'm on draft no. god knows of my transfer report and its got to the point where I didn't get chance to sleep on Sunday night trying to make another unrealistic submission. The knock on effect is that I went to bed early last night and slept for about 18 hours and surprise surprise i'm now not tired, at all.
Saturday night was good as for my Christmas present Nat got me tickets to Lee Evans at the Hallam Arena, that place is massive. The gig was good but not as good as his XXL tour DVD and was ruined slightly at the end by him singing a non comic song about environmental affairs.
Right onto the more interesting stuff.
A while ago now I ended up down at the works with Nat as we were shopping afterwards. On arrival I was met by the enthusiasm of Ryan and Dave M who were both more than keen for me to get my boots on, unfortunately minutes after I agreed they both buggered off but James Blay (now works for wildcountry) turned up and I had a good session. I surprised myself by flashing the majority of the comp wall problems, narrowly missing out on the flash of one of the harder problems as my elbow collided with a blue bolt-a-ledge, unfortunately the session was ruined near the end. I decided to do some chest o n the rings as I knew I'd be too sore/tired to fit in my expected chest session the next day. Within seconds of getting the rings down I had a sea of idiots surrounding me and jumping in whenever possible. I was talking James through the muscle up and an idiot showed up to add his 2p who I had previously taught the same thing. I gave up and left a little annoyed by the whole affair.
Sensing then that this may be the time to re-kickstart the whole climbing affair I forced myself back a few days later, now this session again reminded me about another problem with the works, once you've done the harder problems on the comp wall there isn't a great deal of hard, good problems available. There's a lot of things well within your limit and a tricky circuit with one or two harder problems but consistently hard problems just don't exist. Oh and the training board is w*nk, missing half the holds put on it since it evolved into a 'fixed' problem board.
On the whole climbing front my Dad called on Tuesday morning last week (I think) and said he was coming to Stanage with a friend and would I like to come out tradding? I'd like to point out at this time that the other two members of the group bailed seeing the weather forecast ergo my family does NOT have a pessimistic gene as Dobbin would like to believe.
I spent the day romping up a load of easy routes and really enjoyed myself. I even spied some routes i'd like to return to climb. It's also good to see my Dad progress. I'm not a second generation climber as the previous paragraph might suggest, my Dad started after getting sick and tired of driving me around to crags and to meet people and decided (when I went to Uni) that he'd see what all the fuss is about (quite a logical choice given he loves walking [Dull]).
In the gym things have been going fairly well but as I'm increasingly busy I've tried to mix things up so that I can train less:
Superset:
Flat Bench
Deadlift
Superset:
Weighted Pull-ups
Weighted Dips
Superset:
Pendalay row
Military Press [Currently Arnold Press]
3 sets of 8 although I should really go for 5x5, I just hate it. My body has always responded best to this kind of training 1 day on 1 day off, I'm not sure I subscribe to the theory that you can train every day without ensuring that your isolation of different areas is infallible. It seems to work with some people though but I do think some people struggle with the fact that less can be more, it seems to be a common theme in newbie quieries on power etc.
I found these on exrx.net (they're in lb's)
It made it quite obvious that my goal of getting the big 100kg bench press is going to be very hard, for my bodyweight (56kg, so 123lb's) that's classed as ELITE. My 1 RM's seem to fit in somewhere between Inter and Advanced which I'm pleased with given the definitions on the site.
I don't know whats happened recently but I seem to unseemingly encounter people being less than discrete in various 'acts', my lunch last week on Dev Green was somewhat ruined when I realized that the two alki chavs sat on the near by wall were tending to each other and today at the gym, there I was drinking at the water fountain looking down into the pool to see some jabba the hut looking female tending to her partner in the Jacuzzi. Dear me.
The car is still being overly Italian, Dobbin said it well when he told me that "I'd done my time with an Alfa group car", not wrong! Fuel management sensor failure is it's latest failure as well as Engine Failure, Hill-brake failure, Airbag Failure...the list goes on.
About two weeks ago my router started smelling, of burning components and lett of a little puff before it died. I bought a replacement which had an intermittent signal fault and had hassle returning it and now it seems that the next router that I've bought has some major issues.
Two wried connections, Desktop and Xbox360, two wireless Ubuntu laptop and win xp. Set up using the factory wizard, WPA encryption yet when one laptop is connected the other will detect it as an ad-hoc network. An hour of Netgear help later (their initial suggestions were to turn off security, NO and to delete all of my other preferred networks, NO) they agreed that it was screwed so I now have to return it ebuyer. I also bought a 15 quid wireless access point to configure with my Xbox, I'm now thinking that was a bad move with all this hassle trying to get a basic one working. The silver lining is that Netgear are replacing the first faulty router even though its out of the warranty period.
Saturday night was good as for my Christmas present Nat got me tickets to Lee Evans at the Hallam Arena, that place is massive. The gig was good but not as good as his XXL tour DVD and was ruined slightly at the end by him singing a non comic song about environmental affairs.
Right onto the more interesting stuff.
A while ago now I ended up down at the works with Nat as we were shopping afterwards. On arrival I was met by the enthusiasm of Ryan and Dave M who were both more than keen for me to get my boots on, unfortunately minutes after I agreed they both buggered off but James Blay (now works for wildcountry) turned up and I had a good session. I surprised myself by flashing the majority of the comp wall problems, narrowly missing out on the flash of one of the harder problems as my elbow collided with a blue bolt-a-ledge, unfortunately the session was ruined near the end. I decided to do some chest o n the rings as I knew I'd be too sore/tired to fit in my expected chest session the next day. Within seconds of getting the rings down I had a sea of idiots surrounding me and jumping in whenever possible. I was talking James through the muscle up and an idiot showed up to add his 2p who I had previously taught the same thing. I gave up and left a little annoyed by the whole affair.
Sensing then that this may be the time to re-kickstart the whole climbing affair I forced myself back a few days later, now this session again reminded me about another problem with the works, once you've done the harder problems on the comp wall there isn't a great deal of hard, good problems available. There's a lot of things well within your limit and a tricky circuit with one or two harder problems but consistently hard problems just don't exist. Oh and the training board is w*nk, missing half the holds put on it since it evolved into a 'fixed' problem board.
On the whole climbing front my Dad called on Tuesday morning last week (I think) and said he was coming to Stanage with a friend and would I like to come out tradding? I'd like to point out at this time that the other two members of the group bailed seeing the weather forecast ergo my family does NOT have a pessimistic gene as Dobbin would like to believe.
I spent the day romping up a load of easy routes and really enjoyed myself. I even spied some routes i'd like to return to climb. It's also good to see my Dad progress. I'm not a second generation climber as the previous paragraph might suggest, my Dad started after getting sick and tired of driving me around to crags and to meet people and decided (when I went to Uni) that he'd see what all the fuss is about (quite a logical choice given he loves walking [Dull]).
In the gym things have been going fairly well but as I'm increasingly busy I've tried to mix things up so that I can train less:
Superset:
Flat Bench
Deadlift
Superset:
Weighted Pull-ups
Weighted Dips
Superset:
Pendalay row
Military Press [Currently Arnold Press]
3 sets of 8 although I should really go for 5x5, I just hate it. My body has always responded best to this kind of training 1 day on 1 day off, I'm not sure I subscribe to the theory that you can train every day without ensuring that your isolation of different areas is infallible. It seems to work with some people though but I do think some people struggle with the fact that less can be more, it seems to be a common theme in newbie quieries on power etc.
I found these on exrx.net (they're in lb's)
It made it quite obvious that my goal of getting the big 100kg bench press is going to be very hard, for my bodyweight (56kg, so 123lb's) that's classed as ELITE. My 1 RM's seem to fit in somewhere between Inter and Advanced which I'm pleased with given the definitions on the site.
I don't know whats happened recently but I seem to unseemingly encounter people being less than discrete in various 'acts', my lunch last week on Dev Green was somewhat ruined when I realized that the two alki chavs sat on the near by wall were tending to each other and today at the gym, there I was drinking at the water fountain looking down into the pool to see some jabba the hut looking female tending to her partner in the Jacuzzi. Dear me.
The car is still being overly Italian, Dobbin said it well when he told me that "I'd done my time with an Alfa group car", not wrong! Fuel management sensor failure is it's latest failure as well as Engine Failure, Hill-brake failure, Airbag Failure...the list goes on.
About two weeks ago my router started smelling, of burning components and lett of a little puff before it died. I bought a replacement which had an intermittent signal fault and had hassle returning it and now it seems that the next router that I've bought has some major issues.
Two wried connections, Desktop and Xbox360, two wireless Ubuntu laptop and win xp. Set up using the factory wizard, WPA encryption yet when one laptop is connected the other will detect it as an ad-hoc network. An hour of Netgear help later (their initial suggestions were to turn off security, NO and to delete all of my other preferred networks, NO) they agreed that it was screwed so I now have to return it ebuyer. I also bought a 15 quid wireless access point to configure with my Xbox, I'm now thinking that was a bad move with all this hassle trying to get a basic one working. The silver lining is that Netgear are replacing the first faulty router even though its out of the warranty period.
Thursday 18 September 2008
Arghhh!
Well the other day I though was going to be a good day, I opened the mail to find one of my nsi bonds had won £50 quid. Not a bad start. Later that night, beavering away at my latest (late) report I could smell burning, not toast, nor bad cooking but electrical components. A frantic search around the flat led me to the router which was HOT, one minute later it let out a small puff of smoke so I turned it off. It won't turn back on!.
As I rely quite heavily on it for work I went out that day and bought an almost identical replacement and as you might have guessed from the recent UKB thread I haven't had much luck with that one either.
Today I took it back and was told that he wouldn't refund it and would 'test' it to see if it was indeed faulty. This p*ssed me off but I said ok. He phoned a few hours ago and told me that its fine, he's had it connected (a whopping 1m away) but not sent or recieved any data through it, just let it sit there connected. He then stated that there is no problem and hence no refund. I tried to stay polite and the upshot of it is that he'll test it a bit more (probably about as thoroughly as he has done so far). Now i'm left feeling slightly aggrivated by this, i've never taken anything back before that's needed testing in this way so why now? Is this really acceptable, I don't really see how as he has a vested interest in the item in question being ok. I haven't a clue where to take this from now but I certainly won't be buying from them again.
Furthermore I recieved a letter from my holiday insureres (Snowcard - windsurfing) and they regretfully inform me that they won't cover my sunglasses that sunk because I didn't inform the police of the sinking within 24 hours. Has common sense evaporated from the minds of these people? After an akward pause on the phone where I challenged this brilliant logic they conceded that they would take a written statement from the rep, who incidentally now happens to own an extra two sets of half jacket lenses. I'm sure he won't be hard to convince into writing a letter.
B*stards.
Now, sorry about the rant, I do have climbing/gym revelations to add some time soon. This time with a real shocker = Gritstone tradding!
As I rely quite heavily on it for work I went out that day and bought an almost identical replacement and as you might have guessed from the recent UKB thread I haven't had much luck with that one either.
Today I took it back and was told that he wouldn't refund it and would 'test' it to see if it was indeed faulty. This p*ssed me off but I said ok. He phoned a few hours ago and told me that its fine, he's had it connected (a whopping 1m away) but not sent or recieved any data through it, just let it sit there connected. He then stated that there is no problem and hence no refund. I tried to stay polite and the upshot of it is that he'll test it a bit more (probably about as thoroughly as he has done so far). Now i'm left feeling slightly aggrivated by this, i've never taken anything back before that's needed testing in this way so why now? Is this really acceptable, I don't really see how as he has a vested interest in the item in question being ok. I haven't a clue where to take this from now but I certainly won't be buying from them again.
Furthermore I recieved a letter from my holiday insureres (Snowcard - windsurfing) and they regretfully inform me that they won't cover my sunglasses that sunk because I didn't inform the police of the sinking within 24 hours. Has common sense evaporated from the minds of these people? After an akward pause on the phone where I challenged this brilliant logic they conceded that they would take a written statement from the rep, who incidentally now happens to own an extra two sets of half jacket lenses. I'm sure he won't be hard to convince into writing a letter.
B*stards.
Now, sorry about the rant, I do have climbing/gym revelations to add some time soon. This time with a real shocker = Gritstone tradding!
Tuesday 9 September 2008
King of the Hill
Yesterday a huge box arrived from Myprotein.
A few friends and I clubbed together to save on postage and to take advantage of the bulk buying discounts that they have:
5kg Whey (Raspberry)
2.5 kg Hurricane XS
1kg Creatine Ehtyl Ester (CEE)
1Kg L-glutamine
Numerous shakers, tubs and scoops.
I have to say that i'm really impressed with the whey, i've always conceded that MP didn't have the same palatability of Maximuscle, Met-RX etc. but this flavoured whey is amazing!
Hopefully I can get back into training properly this week without all this inconvenient work stuff getting in the way.
A few friends and I clubbed together to save on postage and to take advantage of the bulk buying discounts that they have:
5kg Whey (Raspberry)
2.5 kg Hurricane XS
1kg Creatine Ehtyl Ester (CEE)
1Kg L-glutamine
Numerous shakers, tubs and scoops.
I have to say that i'm really impressed with the whey, i've always conceded that MP didn't have the same palatability of Maximuscle, Met-RX etc. but this flavoured whey is amazing!
Hopefully I can get back into training properly this week without all this inconvenient work stuff getting in the way.
Sunday 7 September 2008
Holiday Blues...
Just before going on holiday I worked like a demon to meet some fairly unrealistic targets thrust upon me.
One of the final conclusions I made was that "where .... is interesting the effects are not significant when compared to the effects of more hydrodynamic structures". That's taken a year of effort and my time and I'm currently painstakingly making corrections to a report for the nth time that comes to that very conclusion and it's really making me start to question what on earth I thought I was doing signing up for this?
The corrections just seem meaningless given the context, if the end results is of no significance then the method I used to get there is even less so, what happens if the next two years are devoted to taking this further in another context which ends up with the same conclusion? It certainly doesn't make for a meaningful qualification in my mind at least. The other alternative of course is to go down the same path as Nat but that's not something that even she is enjoying, despite her worker bee tendency. The final option of course is (to quote a fairly tacky line) break the mould and do something else with myself, a few ideas flick around in the back of my mind but I really haven't a clue how to make them feasible and I'm not talking free loading sporting bum type career choices either.
Sorry for the whinge which is almost undoubtedly down to coming back from one of my best holidays to date.
On a climbing note (something a bit new and different), Nat hassled me into taking her to the Foundry on friday night. I have to say the place looked sad and vulnerable centered amongst all of the re-development. The same crowd of Friday night locals I knew from around 3 years ago where all there but that was it. I climbed suprisingly well although the firmness on the mat's stopped me from pushing myself on the hardest of the problems. My fingers didn't really thank me for the Foundry reunion, they felt crunchy and generally bad throughout the night. I also managed to upset Ed "concave chest, the human matchstick" Horseley by making reference to Serpico's sports science papers re: rate coding and the uselessness of adding weight for sports specific movements. He looked genuinely hurt. The plus point of all this is of course that the Foundry is only 2 mins away from our flat, hence the evening was much less rushed due to not having to rush across town.
One of the final conclusions I made was that "where .... is interesting the effects are not significant when compared to the effects of more hydrodynamic structures". That's taken a year of effort and my time and I'm currently painstakingly making corrections to a report for the nth time that comes to that very conclusion and it's really making me start to question what on earth I thought I was doing signing up for this?
The corrections just seem meaningless given the context, if the end results is of no significance then the method I used to get there is even less so, what happens if the next two years are devoted to taking this further in another context which ends up with the same conclusion? It certainly doesn't make for a meaningful qualification in my mind at least. The other alternative of course is to go down the same path as Nat but that's not something that even she is enjoying, despite her worker bee tendency. The final option of course is (to quote a fairly tacky line) break the mould and do something else with myself, a few ideas flick around in the back of my mind but I really haven't a clue how to make them feasible and I'm not talking free loading sporting bum type career choices either.
Sorry for the whinge which is almost undoubtedly down to coming back from one of my best holidays to date.
On a climbing note (something a bit new and different), Nat hassled me into taking her to the Foundry on friday night. I have to say the place looked sad and vulnerable centered amongst all of the re-development. The same crowd of Friday night locals I knew from around 3 years ago where all there but that was it. I climbed suprisingly well although the firmness on the mat's stopped me from pushing myself on the hardest of the problems. My fingers didn't really thank me for the Foundry reunion, they felt crunchy and generally bad throughout the night. I also managed to upset Ed "concave chest, the human matchstick" Horseley by making reference to Serpico's sports science papers re: rate coding and the uselessness of adding weight for sports specific movements. He looked genuinely hurt. The plus point of all this is of course that the Foundry is only 2 mins away from our flat, hence the evening was much less rushed due to not having to rush across town.
Thursday 4 September 2008
Dahab '08
Almost 3 weeks ago now I was sat in Manchester Airport at around 5am having left Sheffield at 3, opting to shun sleep in favor of a Halo 3 marathon as by the time we had packed (to the good lady's satisfaction I might add) it was already midnight.Sat there in the gate I started to get very edgey, everyone milling about was fake tan tangerine and sporting either a football shirt or a Juicy Couture tracksuit (first worn by that classy lady Jodie Marsh). Surely these people weren't destined for a week or two of whipping around windsurfing? After what was possibly the most cramped flight I've ever been on, listening to a soundtrack of screaming children over the top of Dobbin's latest mix recommendation on my ipod my fears increased. Straight out of the airport I was handed a load of flyers for the ministry of sound (sporting an open air foam party, MMmmm nice). Kicking myself and making a new resolution to do more research before booking holiday, my fears lifted as the orange brigade marched off in one direction as a Nielson holiday shepherd ushered my another.
An hours bus ride ,a lot of dust, rubbish and a load of check points later, all manned by a young guy with an AK47 we passed through another guarded gate and into the resort and the scenery changed. Nielson have created an odd place here, surrounded by a dusty waste land and a whole lot of nothingness they've managed to build a resort surrounded by lush green grass and trees.
Nat on the beach.
The hotel was basic and the food although not amazing certainly wasn't bad the only bug bear I really had was that they tried to screw you over for water by charging £2.00 for a 1.5 ltr bottle (that was soon rectified by running through the gate house with cases of water bought from the local town as the guards chased us to seize the offending goods).
I won't bore you with all the details and a blow by blow account of the fortnight, just a few noteworthy points.
We were very lucky, 1 or 2 days before we arrived a load of containers that had been held up in Cairo for 3 months also showed up. They contained replacement everything. New dinghies, new boards, new rigs, new harness's the LOT and all of this it turns out is worth a scary amount of money.
There were four aisles like this!
The flies in Dahab are persistent, the local shopkeepers even more so.
It is impossible to spend more than £20 on a 3 course meal for two, we tried ordering mountains of fresh sea food but it never broke that magical 200 L.E.
In week one our group was made up of overweight mothers, jail bait teens who chose to windsurf in bikini top's and booty cut jean shorts under a wet t-shirt, a very studenty student, Nat and I and was 25 strong. By the end of week one only four of us remained and made the cut for RYA level 1. However Nat the student and I made headway into more complex things such as beach starts etc.
The group for week 2 was about 12 strong and as it was classified as "Intermediate Non-planing" everyone had actually decided that they liked the sport and progress was swift. The week was spent improving our tacking and gybing, re-doing beach starts for those that hadn't done them, deep beach starts, water-starts and then using the harness.
My first deep beach start
By the end of the first two days the whole group was planing which was seriously astounding the instructor. After this (as you get days off) Nat and I spent the rest days on the water and ended up pretty much with 1 to 1 tuition, the instructor we got (being Egyptian) was confused as to which group we were in and spent the day teaching us duck gybe's and helitacks which are slightly more advanced, we cracked the duck gybe but the helitack (being the first real freestyle move you learn) evaded us, the whole getting back winded and being on the wrong side of the sail just led to being catapulted violently in various directions.
On the last day the instructor encouraged us to be brave, smaller board, bigger sail. Oh, it was also very windy. I had a massive smile on my face as I was planing along in the harness at high speed with shoals of fish shooting beneath my board. I don't really know how to liken it to climbing but its a similar feeling when you're skiing, really smooth and really fast in nice conditions. We were warned in week 1 that once you get planing you'll get addicted, it's true. Another freestyle move went down on the final day, the boomerang, turn into the wind and throw your sail forward and down, it shoots back to your hand like a boomerang and bang, you're off!
As we didn't leave until 1:30pm on the last day and it was a free-sail day, Nat and I got up early, so early in fact that we had the water to ourselves. We managed to squeeze in a good few hours of blasting around until my hands fell to bits and we called it a day. It was a bit depressing to finally sign the equipment back in.
By the end of the two weeks we both managed to get our RYA level 2 and are well on the way to level 3, the whole group as we said previously were planing! Nat and I also received the group award and were urged NOT to quit due to the swift rate of progress.
Nat in the middle
The journey back was boring and uneventful but thankfully Nat had the Friday off so it wasn't straight back to work. We picked up our bags at the airport and wandered down to the station just in time to watch a Sheffield train disappear. The next train was nearly three hours later which made me curse taking the slightly cheaper option. Sitting around doing nothing when you're tired is just rubbish.
So now we're back and still keen on getting back out on the water sometime soon, despite the obvious differences, we're not exactly in a great location which means travel, add to that the cost of renting equipment and things start getting pricey but nowhere near the cost of buying equipment. Second hand, one board and rig similar to that which we were using the previous week costs £1057 and add to that you need another couple of sails, wet suit, harness..
The car tried to upset me last weekend. "Engine Failure" warning light. Nat and I cursed its Italian nature, a few days later I decided to give it a check over and my cursing turned to my other half. A quick top up of water and the over dramatic Italian was silenced.
One more thing - Oakleys don't float unfortunately.
Glossary if anyone cares:
Duck Gybe:
Helitack:
An hours bus ride ,a lot of dust, rubbish and a load of check points later, all manned by a young guy with an AK47 we passed through another guarded gate and into the resort and the scenery changed. Nielson have created an odd place here, surrounded by a dusty waste land and a whole lot of nothingness they've managed to build a resort surrounded by lush green grass and trees.
Nat on the beach.The hotel was basic and the food although not amazing certainly wasn't bad the only bug bear I really had was that they tried to screw you over for water by charging £2.00 for a 1.5 ltr bottle (that was soon rectified by running through the gate house with cases of water bought from the local town as the guards chased us to seize the offending goods).
I won't bore you with all the details and a blow by blow account of the fortnight, just a few noteworthy points.
We were very lucky, 1 or 2 days before we arrived a load of containers that had been held up in Cairo for 3 months also showed up. They contained replacement everything. New dinghies, new boards, new rigs, new harness's the LOT and all of this it turns out is worth a scary amount of money.
There were four aisles like this!The flies in Dahab are persistent, the local shopkeepers even more so.
It is impossible to spend more than £20 on a 3 course meal for two, we tried ordering mountains of fresh sea food but it never broke that magical 200 L.E.
In week one our group was made up of overweight mothers, jail bait teens who chose to windsurf in bikini top's and booty cut jean shorts under a wet t-shirt, a very studenty student, Nat and I and was 25 strong. By the end of week one only four of us remained and made the cut for RYA level 1. However Nat the student and I made headway into more complex things such as beach starts etc.
The group for week 2 was about 12 strong and as it was classified as "Intermediate Non-planing" everyone had actually decided that they liked the sport and progress was swift. The week was spent improving our tacking and gybing, re-doing beach starts for those that hadn't done them, deep beach starts, water-starts and then using the harness.
My first deep beach startBy the end of the first two days the whole group was planing which was seriously astounding the instructor. After this (as you get days off) Nat and I spent the rest days on the water and ended up pretty much with 1 to 1 tuition, the instructor we got (being Egyptian) was confused as to which group we were in and spent the day teaching us duck gybe's and helitacks which are slightly more advanced, we cracked the duck gybe but the helitack (being the first real freestyle move you learn) evaded us, the whole getting back winded and being on the wrong side of the sail just led to being catapulted violently in various directions.
On the last day the instructor encouraged us to be brave, smaller board, bigger sail. Oh, it was also very windy. I had a massive smile on my face as I was planing along in the harness at high speed with shoals of fish shooting beneath my board. I don't really know how to liken it to climbing but its a similar feeling when you're skiing, really smooth and really fast in nice conditions. We were warned in week 1 that once you get planing you'll get addicted, it's true. Another freestyle move went down on the final day, the boomerang, turn into the wind and throw your sail forward and down, it shoots back to your hand like a boomerang and bang, you're off!
As we didn't leave until 1:30pm on the last day and it was a free-sail day, Nat and I got up early, so early in fact that we had the water to ourselves. We managed to squeeze in a good few hours of blasting around until my hands fell to bits and we called it a day. It was a bit depressing to finally sign the equipment back in.
By the end of the two weeks we both managed to get our RYA level 2 and are well on the way to level 3, the whole group as we said previously were planing! Nat and I also received the group award and were urged NOT to quit due to the swift rate of progress.
Nat in the middleThe journey back was boring and uneventful but thankfully Nat had the Friday off so it wasn't straight back to work. We picked up our bags at the airport and wandered down to the station just in time to watch a Sheffield train disappear. The next train was nearly three hours later which made me curse taking the slightly cheaper option. Sitting around doing nothing when you're tired is just rubbish.
So now we're back and still keen on getting back out on the water sometime soon, despite the obvious differences, we're not exactly in a great location which means travel, add to that the cost of renting equipment and things start getting pricey but nowhere near the cost of buying equipment. Second hand, one board and rig similar to that which we were using the previous week costs £1057 and add to that you need another couple of sails, wet suit, harness..
The car tried to upset me last weekend. "Engine Failure" warning light. Nat and I cursed its Italian nature, a few days later I decided to give it a check over and my cursing turned to my other half. A quick top up of water and the over dramatic Italian was silenced.
One more thing - Oakleys don't float unfortunately.
Glossary if anyone cares:
Duck Gybe:
Helitack:
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