The Snow has Arrived Early!

In the UK that is - and it is only November. Eight weeks in Kaly and we have had one and a half days of rain - not too shoddy - and lowest temerature so far has been 12c - I think we will stop a while longer.
I went to renew the car hire today (good exchange rate at the mo) - and Mike asked me if I wanted to actually buy a car - he a good deal on a Matiz. Trouble is we need to be in the Blanca in February, 'suppose we could buy it drive it round there!
Big fat local oranges €3 for four kilos from a harbour front seller - superb!

"It's all gone Quiet Over Here, Over Here"

The 'season' is about just about done, our team of five has departed for damp and distant shores along with most other folks. We have set our clocks two hours ahead of Greek time to make the most of sunny evening on the terrace (yeah, weird I know!) and the glorious sunsets continue to dazzle.
I have started working in earnest on Peak Limestone which is a bit weird, day-time climbing superb 35m pitches on perfect Kalymnian limestone and evenings scrutinising pictures of Horseshoe Quarry and Water-cum-Jolly.
A hot couple of hours on Arhi, (four routes, 12 stars) and an early evening dinner courtesy of Babis and Diana - a great way to spend a Friday!

Wham, bam, thank you Maam!

Colin, Dave and Mark have been here three weeks today (five in a Panda - no probs!), Graham and Helen a fortnight - and it has been pretty much perfect; warm, sunny and dry, with the number of climbers continuing to dwindle. Tomorrow they all set off for Blighty and we settle into our winter routine. We have done some fantastic routes, the big pitches on Arhi being especially notable. Colin and Mark have done (well) in excess of a hundred routes again and Graham has been as impressed as we were 1st time - "I'll be back" was all he had to say on the matter.
We had the compulsory thunderstorm a couple of days ago - with associated power-cuts and floods - it was a real cracker, flashing and rumbling away for most of the night. We were climbing on Kastelli when it arrived, I made it back to the car with seconds to spare - Mark and Colin didn't quite! The drive back through Massouri was spectacular as the water gushed off the hillsides, levels rose by the second and the wipers couldn't cope with the volume of rain - Kalymnos doesn't do anything by halves!

Remember, Remember

November has long been my least favourite month, invariably grey, cold and miserable, with precious little to look forward as the winter grinds on. This is our 3rd November on Kalymnos, and I am warming to it, as usual the crowds have gone, it has cooled down nicely and the weather has been brilliant. Monday 1st Nov we took the boat round to Irox and it crossed my mind we could easily have been stuck in traffic, in the drizzle back home on the way to start the long and dreary autumn term. A couple of days ago we went snorkelling (loads of fish) round at Emporios and since then we have done some great routes - unbeatable.
Graham and Helen Parkes arrived a few days ago, and they soon slipped into Island Life - it doesn't take long!

French Revolution

November tomorrow, the fleet of taxis has been trucking the climbers towards the ferry in droves, the forecast is about as perfect as it gets, cool sunny and dry. Lovely Jubbly! The new guide has proved a great fillip, getting us to revisit old venues and new ones too. Almost everywhere we go we are spotting new lines - the Kalymnos Gold Rush is far from over.
We have done some great climbs including some superb long pitches probably pre-eminent have been a couple of 6b routes; Titine on Cave Crag (34m - 16 clips) and Cacoyannis (30m - 17 clips) on Pocket Wall - both magnificent routes and quite unlike anything in the UK.

Well known French climber and new router Bruno Fara is stopping in our apartment block again this year. I explained who I was and a bit about our new guidebook to the Cote d'Azure. Once he finished roaring with laughter and pointing his pretend gun at me he was pretty cool about the whole thing. He says there have been rumbling of the French climbing sites but looking at the guide on the laptop he said "I will buy it" - that's good enough for me - he can have a complimentary copy!

Kalymnos Guidebook Launch

The much anticipated new guidebook to Kalymnos was launched earlier this week. The author, Aris brought 250 copies over from Athens and they were all sold within a few hours, more 'supplies' are arriving on Wednesday. There was a cheery gathering of 30 or 40 folks at Aris's house to 'wet the book's head', as the sun set over Kalymnos, all very romantic. He signed and passed over one of the few copies reserved for 'friends and helpers' and I managed to smuggle it out without the assembled masses getting a look at it - I think I would never have got it back once it was out in the wild.
The book is a slightly smaller format than the last one, and the addition of an extra 60 pages have allowed the route count to more or less double - from 840 to around 1600.
A lovely piece of work and sure to be on the shopping list of many a climber through the long dark winter ahead.
I have already started a list of new routes that have been added in the past couple of weeks mind, I think it was out-of-date before it was actually in print!

Nikon P7000 - First Thoughts

I have had the new Nikon P7000 now for three weeks (a big thank-you to Harrison Photo-Video in Sheffield who got me one the day after it was released) and I thought a little report back might be a good idea. It is quite a chunky beast, substantially bigger and heavier than my old Leica DLux 3, but is small enough to be carried on the hip and used with one hand.
The lens is a cracker, at 28-200 it covers a substantial range and at 2.8-5.6 is quite fast too.The two shots above show the full range of the zoom - impressive enough.
It has a decent sized sensor, reasonable low light performance, a rapid shooting mode (not sure how many fps - but a few). A 90 minute battery charge lasts for more than a week of shooting. It has a high quality video mode (720 fps) in which the full range of the zoom works AND a view-finder. Link HERE to a short video. It also has a neat 'stitch-assist' for overlapping panoramas which is very effective. Rapid start up and negligible shutter lag; all in all, a great package.

Cons: the manual only comes as a PDF, the battery symbol only shows when it needs a recharge rather than a diminishing scale (still get a days shooting out of it when the light comes on), and it will fire when it can't focus (shows a red square to warn you mind). I would have preferred the lcd screen to be recessed rather then flush with the back of the camera, will need to take care.