Simon's Day

This is Simon swimming to the South Stack at Rubha Hunish.

We've taken over Simon's house on Skye - Mick & Kathy have their caravan in his drive - Irish John has his tent in the garden, while Chef John, me, Mrs L, Rancidand & Cancarrier have occupied all the available bedrooms.

Thanks Simon, and by the way as we fancy climbing the South Stack at Rubha Hunish, we need someone to volunteer to swim over to the stack so's we can set up a Tyrolean and the rest of us don't have to get wet - thanks once again Simon.

Once Simon's dry gear got over to the stack for him to change into, it seemed that his underpants were missing. Did anyone volunteer to go look for them? Nope! You'll be fine climbing in soggy swim pants - Sorry Simon.

So we all duly Tyroleaned across, climbed the stack, abseiled back down, Tyroleaned back and had lunch. Four and a half hours it took us - excellent fun.

Enough time left for another route, so while Cancarrier chose a dip in the sea, the rest of us headed north and climbed / abseiled down into a chasm where there was a choice of three routes to escape by. As our stances were all below the high tide mark there was a little added interest with the fact the tide was coming in.

It was a bit like a race to get out, Mick, Kathy & John were all leading, while Rancidand, Me & Simon were all belayed at the bottom trusting our leaders would rescue us before the tide came in. Mind you, us three belayers were actually on different levels - guess who was on the lowest level and therefore most at risk from the tide? - Yup, Simon. And guess whose leader was last to the top and therefore last to be rescued? - Yup, none other than Simon. He'd only got a wee bit splashed by the waves and the tide hadn't quite covered his belay stance, by the time he started climbing, no worries there then.

All in all we all thoroughly enjoyed Simon's day, most especially Simon methinks.

Today's routes were:

Rubha Hunish South Stack:
Maol Groove VS 4c Mick Lead Top Rope - Christine, Simon, Andy, Me, John, Kath.

The escape from the chasm:
Bay Back Crack 25m VS 4c **Kathy Lead, I seconded
Delicasse 25m VS 4b ** John Lead, Simon seconded
The Narrows 25m HVS 5a ** Mick Lead, Rancidand seconded

Cancarrier's version & Rancidand's version of the day.