5th October 2007
Penberth
This year has been a succession of weirdness as far as the weather goes. Its now October and we are getting some of the best weather of the year. This session at Penberth was a cracker - warm sunshine with a cooling seabreeze and an ocean that looked magnificent. This is still one of the most beautiful settings to climb in that I have come across.
Pete had not climbed on Cornish granite before so this was an opportunity for gaining some experience and teaching Pete the basics of belaying and rope work. Also, climbing on rock is a completely different entity to climbing indoors. Indoors the sound of seaguls, the ocean, the wind and the general openess do not feature.
Initially we climbed in sector 1 using the corner cracks for practicing different techniques. The it was straight onto the Hornet, a big jump in hardness and commitment. Pete handled it brilliantly which is good because now I know he'll be alright when we tackle Bosigran Ridge later.
To finish we did the traverse of the bay, always a bit hairy but great fun. Lots of opportunity to fallinto the sea on this one. Easier than it looks although Pete might not agree. Petes cat like leap onto the rocks halfway round nearly resulted in disaster as he forgot to stay on the bit he landed on and peeled backwards towards the rock-pool. Near miss....
On the climb out we came across some old hauling tackle, drilled and mortered into the rock. There was no obvious landing point. Possibly this is the remains of old smugglers gear, although it is not clear. I also came across what could be an E3 talked about on javu. Not sure, but it looks hard.
As a final moan, we had to cart out a carrier bag of crap left by a fisherman, with bait packets and plastic bottle inside. People should really respect places like Penberth, not try to ditch them with their rubbish.
Is the hornet the cracks and v notch to the R behind petes head? I got the impression that the E3 was further back 2wards the big tower but I couldn`t see anything resembling it.
Cheers
ChrisH