Did you know I was going Coasteering? If so, due to my lack of updates, you might have thought old Neptune had caught me in his net or Davy Jones had towel whipped me from his locker. Not quite, but nearly. Jumping into a wind-swept Irish Sea at high tide on a mid-November morning is a good way to get yourself killed, but if you survive, it's also a damn good way to have some dangerously nervous fun too.

[out of focus water-cam pics to be posted soon]

The drill runs like this:

1. introduction and obligatory, "are you up for it!" hype-speech from blonde surfer dude with the physique of Mr Incredible (seriously)
2. pull yourself into a skimpy, ball-crushing wetsuit, damp from the previous occupant
3. don helmet, gloves and buoyancy jacket and get into transit van to soundtrack of Red Hot Chili Peppers (cliché surf music? check!)
4. drive to windswept cliff edge near ruins of derelict nunnery (?)
5. scramble down lethal cliff edge path. slip....grab gorse bush to stop falling to death. (multiple thorns in your hand? check!)
6. make way over medium size rocks and water to big rock for first jump off. arms across chest, legs together - pencil jump
7. sluice sinuses with ice cold salt water
8. climb onto rock, repeat 6 and 7
9. paddle\bob uncontrollably over to wave battered peninsula of rock and insert self into the small maelstrom hosted there
10. get repeatedly battered against various rocks whilst forcing out collective nervous, "yeee hah!"s
11. get swept down a channel not unlike the clashing rocks from Jason and the Argonauts
12. watch in amazement as instructor and fellow coasteerer are swept off the rock by a 6 foot wave that bowls them into the group
13. witness Dutch guy get his face smashed against a rock and Chris get double-dunked whilst trying to grab some breath
14. laugh uncontrollably
15. repeat until your feet have gone numb and you have lock-jaw from shivering so much
16. get a tow back to shore from Mr Incredible as you think you might drown
17. try to covertly pee in wetsuit through a cold-shrunken, inverted penis
18. get changed out of your freezing wetsuit on the top of the windswept cliff
19. start to thaw out your 'blocks of ice' feet
20. two hours later, thaw out your 'blocks of ice' feet


Remarkably, the recollections I have of this event are good and I want to do it again. What I don't want to do though, is go back to Swansea, where you get the threat of danger, but without the fun. What a dump. Some people like it though. Take this little chap we saw in the park....