Staying Alive

So onto the final drama of the Pembroke weekend.  Cannonball wotsits name climb.  We'd been climbing all day, and done our final abseil down to the small inlet between the rocky outcrop and the cliffs.  Carl wanted to do a particular climb but even as he was ascending the first few feet I was having to move me and the ropes further up the rocks out of the way of the ever encroaching tide.  Even getting to the bottom of the cliff to start the climb was going to be at the very least a wet feet experience and definitely would meet the description "interesting".  But it was not to be; he got off to a slow start and realising my potential predicament, but more importantly becoming aware that his ropes could get wet, down he came and we sought out an alternative way up the cliffs and out of the getting damper by the minute environment.  Carl's encyclopaedic knowledge of the area soon gave us an option.  The hardest climb yet of the day at HVS, and indeed the hardest second climb to date in my ever expanding log book.  Fortunately he saw my pathetic face and decided to bring me up to a small rocky ledge a few feet above the waves rather than drown me (again).  So there I was, tethered to this small ledge, uncomfortable under foot, less than a foot out from the cliff and about four foot long.  Attached by three anchor points.  Then again, as it ever were, he left me.  And climbed.

The climb followed a crack into a chimney with an overhang, small traverse then a climb up a slab face to safety.  All seemed to be going mostly well, until there was one of those hesitations where you know your lead is buying time because he simply seemed to be placing as much gear as he could into an area about a foot square.  A good delaying tactic if ever I saw one. And he climbed up and put a friend in on the right, then over and a wire it was on the left and clearly he was making some decisions.

Then.

A shout.  And rope going suddenly very slack.

And I can see Carl a lot lower down than he was in the chimney, and there's a loud crack at my feet, and I'm in foetal position still trying to get some of the slack back on the ropes.  Then it's quiet, and nothing moves.  I'm looking up.  Carl's looking down.  Both of us trying to quickly assess the other's safety.  There's a rock on the ropes next to my feet that wasn't there before.  There's a cut on my ankle, and blood seeping into my climbing shoe.  And Carl.  Well, Carl's still up there, and he's precarious.  And I take in the rope.  I ask are you OK, he says he is, asks if I am,  I say yes.  Deep breaths.  Climb when ready.  And he climbs until a safe place is finally found, and I ask him if he can wait there, and he can, and I remove the rock from the ropes.  And I naively think that's it, issue dealt with, we're off.

Carl reaches the top and says safe, I let him off belay "off belay", and he hauls the ropes through while I faff with things on my harness, getting the nut key forward, putting the prussik loop backwards.  "That's me", I say as the ropes get me.  A pause for rigging and I get a "climb when ready", take myself out of the gear on the ledge and shout "climbing".  And I don't notice, don't see, because I haven't been watching the ropes.  I don't notice the damage, and don't realise what it is, exactly my life would depend on should I fall.  Which fortunately, I don't.

And inevitably the song I leave you with is Staying Alive.