Not afraid

After a midnight arrival at the St Petrox campsite, erecting the darling tent by the light of the van headlights, a still night changed into a bird song dawn all too soon.  In the spirit of joy at the little things the teeny gelert calor gas burner was ignited, kettle was on and the customary camping breakfast of tea and oats so simple in the somewhat over the top packaging pots was quickly achieved.  For this morning we had a military briefing to attend.  Off to Range West with high, high hopes.  Dreams of men in khaki uniform were foremost in my mind.  And we arrived, and there were a motley crew of climbers awaiting the briefing.  Scruffy for the most part and somewhat weather worn if the truth be told.  My climbing partner embraced the spirit of camaraderie and that weird appearance of being part of some exclusive and strange "scene" by knowing some of the stranger looking characters and idly making chitchat as we awaited permission to proceed to site.

The first uniformed individual greeting us was, much to my disappointment, female.  The next man up was a somewhat sturdy gentleman sporting a beret and a rather stereotypical moustache.  And we were informed about routes through, about times of activity, quantities of ammunition, nesting birds, seals, all manner of housekeeping details.  Then as I glanced along the row, suddenly I felt part of this bedraggled community, because randomly there was a familiar face.  Denial was my first reaction.  Because the face I thought I knew was a sea kayaker with his own base in Cardigan, and he was with a woman and children and to the best of my knowledge if he was the man I thought he was, he was a childless singleton.  I know, it's just a detail.  And I dismissed the possibility that this could be the Steve I knew ... until the close of the briefing when I came face to face with him at the handing in of the "I have listened to everything and the army has no liability" forms.  And from that point onwards, it seemed wherever I strayed along the Pembroke coast, so did Steve.  If I climbed a cliff, there he was at the top.

From there we headed to Flimston Bay.  I had a deeply patient and extremely detailed lesson in how to set up an ab.  Anchor points were jointly identified and discussed.  And then came the moment where I had to practice with the prussik loop.  After quite some time, a latent memory rose to the forefront of my chimping out brain (there was a certain amount of me that was pretty much just going wibble with fear by this time).  I am a left handed prussiker.  Simply cannot manage it on my right hand side.  Not a clue why not, but back in the good old tree climbing days of yore (those were much more bruised days even than now), I have a weird near ambidextrous thing going on.  I say this as I type looking at my left hand mouse; a true deterrent to others using my computer.  And the first abseil down the cliff was jerky and slow, and by the end of it my right arm was wondering how it was ever to climb back up the cliff again. 

A veritable cats cradle of ropes, slings, and pieces of wire were set up to secure me and my gibbering chimp to a teeny and rocky ledge of extreme discomfort.  Small splashes were occasionally tickling my ankles and all was well.  And then Carl left.  Climb when ready was, in my head, similar to "please don't leave me" but somehow that's not how it was interpreted.  And up he went, and left hand belaying also took place, and there were squawking birds and there were interested seals popping their heads up.  And Carl reached the top.  At which point it was a cue for a freak wave to hit me.  Chained to the cliff as I was in my cowardice and some degree of terror this was interesting.  At least it wouldn't sweep me away, but at the same time, there was no escape.  Carl was in the fortunate position of having topped out and being in a place to look down and observe when he heard the sound of the sea change.  And down he looked and nowhere was I to be seen.  Then the wave cleared and my red helmet was once more visible, with a laughing (possibly hysterically) Alison.  Then the second wave hit me and somewhere in all this, Carl had me on belay.  For once, with no messing, the wires, slings etc. were removed.  The first ten feet of climbing to get me above the wet rock was uncannily quick.  Who would have thought I could move so nippily.  And that was just the first day of drenched salt stained trousers ...

And I  leave you with Belinda Carlisle singing "When I'm lost at sea I hear your voice and it carries me.  In this world we're just beginning to understand the miracle of living. Baby I was afraid before, but I'm not afraid anymore."