A Ton Eighty

The weather has turned a bit mixed - showery days with highs of 16C interspersed with warmer dry days, maybe the winter pattern has established itself. A finger injury continues to niggle, though I have still manage to nudge the route tally for the trip up to "Onehunnerdanneighty" so that's not too bad.
We went out for meal with Aris Theodoropoulos, the author of the Kalymnos climbing guide, and his American wife - (there is still the odd restaurant open in Masouri), and did what climbers do the world over; talked about climbing, grades, stars and of course guidebooks for most of the evening!
Next day a walk up into the hills south of the airport offered great views into the centre of the island and wider vistas southwards were Rhodes and Karpathos, the latter over 90 miles away.

December Days

It has been little unsettled for a couple of days, just as forecast, and that has given me a bit of time to crack on nicely with the French guidebook. It looks like we will need to revisit the area sometime in the New Year, but in the mean time we are enjoying island life.
Yesterday was hot so we headed for Dolphin Bay where I did half-a-dozen routes I hadn't done before. We were shocked to see another team (three teams actually) there, but in the event they didn't get in the way - strange how quickly we have got used to having the place to ourselves. Then it was back to the terrace for another glorious sunset as towering clouds sailed by.

Sunday School Outing

November draws to a close and the weather remains superb, though the forecast suggest there might be a bit of break-down towards the middle of next week; we can't complain, especially considering what the UK has been suffering.
On one of our forays over to the north side of the island we had spotted a superb looking secluded beach about a half-hours' walk downhill from the new road. For a Sunday rest-day We took a small picnic plus the snorkling gear and headed in there. There is a tiny chapel down there, some old ruined buildings (Italian, from the war maybe) and superb crystal sea. Oh - and the inevitable unclimbed cliffs.

Back to School

The great weather continues into the last week in November - the cheerful chap who told us last year that autumns in the Aegean were unsettled may just have been wrong. Saturday we visited a newish cliff on Telenos - clearly visible from our pad and at night Babis took us out for a meal in down-town Pothia. A quiet restaurant on the seafront was the venue, the evening started well when he offered ouzos all round and got better as a continuous array of seafood (exotic in many cases) came our way - excellent stuff indeed.
Sunday was time for another new cliff Jungle Book/School was the venue, a bit of a grind up past Iliad, and of course we had the place to ourselves. The routes were better than I expected, and the spacing of the bolts was best described as 'encouraging'. I did a steady eight - which tallies up to a nice round 150 so far.

My Big Fat Greek Holiday

After a couple of days on the rock a more gentle session was called for; we followed the new road over to Vathy (only spied a few new cliffs) and explored the tiny fishing village there, including its early Christian basilica. We bought oranges from a roadside seller, and had omelette and bread outside a harbour front cafe, whilst watching the fishermen mend their nets - Monday morning in the middle of November - we still can't get over it.
Back via Potha where we bought a whole tuna (only a small one really) for €3, and back home for tea. Just about to start the frying when Babis turned up with six fish he had caught and cooked for us - quite superb. The tuna will do for tomorrow!

Woosh......

That's that then - Colin and Mark dropped off at the high speed ferry this evening and a strange calm descends - we are on our own for the first time in five weeks. Whilst they were here Colin cracked of 155 routes and Mark 135 - all in all impressive numbers.
It hammered it down last night and piled up some impressive debris round the appartments. By dawn the sun was out so we finished of with a gentle five at Noufaro this morning (trundling a huge loose flake in the process) then had tea on the terrace as the sun set into the Aegean - they both went a bit pensive!

Time for a Change

The apartments (and island) have really started to clear out and we have moved 'upstairs' into out winter residence - a bigger apartment previously occupied by four Frenchies. It is a year to the day since we left Kalymnos heading for home so it was quite fitting to get up on Ghost Kitchen, one of the few major cliffs I hadn't climbed on. Joy in the Garden (6b) was the highlight for me and Colin steamed up the superb Resistor (6c+) - I managed to follow to in one push so was well pleased. He also made short work of Totenhausen (7a) up an amazing set of tufas.

On top of that Lofoten Rock won the Outdoor Writer and Photographers Guide Book of the Year award - marvellous stuff!