Coasteering

Hellooooo! Spring break has officially started, and so has the manic need to catch up in my blogging. My fellow study group buddies have dutifully reminded me that I have not been keeping up with meet the group mondays, so I may have to double up some days! eek!

This blog post is about a new sport that Jackie convinced me to try (who else?). On Monday last week while still in Pembrokeshire, Kristie, Jackie and I got up freakishly early to make our way to a small coastal town to try coasteering. On the bus ride there, we were joined on the bus by a flock of school children on their way to school. It was interesting seeing what life must be like for these kids in these small coastal towns. No one wanted to sit near me (I probably looked scary with my huge pack and goofy boots), but the kids couldnt stop staring at us. A couple of punks in the front had faux hawks, which make me laugh, especially in combo with their school uniforms. When we got off the bus, we were in the middle of nowhere, but we somehow managed to walk the few miles to the beach without getting even a bit lost. It was a beautiful morning and we contemplated on how we wouldnt be too sad if we got stuck out there missing professor Geier's class.

When we arrived at the beach, we met up with our coasteering guides, Cleo, Jerry, and the main guy whose name I don't remember. They gave us our "kit", which consisted of a wet suit, shoes, a buoyancy aid as they call it, a skull cap, helmet, and gloves. Cleo was amusing, she always was whistling some tune and seemed full of energy. The main guy leading us was a marine biology major, so he seemed really eager to tell us all about the coastal organisms. Jerry was quiet but nice. We started out by wading into the cold water and climbing along the rocks, which was pretty fun but very slippery so we had to walk on the barnacles. I had heard from Sarah (my best friend) that coasteering is ruining the coastal ecosystems, and I felt very guilty about stepping on the barnacles. The water was pretty cold, but they made us dunk in our wetsuits which warmed us up pretty fast.

Coasteering is very fun, but a little silly. We took turns jumping into the water doing various flips, and climbed all over the cliff faces without going very high. We learned about sea anemones that shoot poisonous barbs into their prey to immobilize them, and about a certain type of snail that has acid for blood and eats barnacles by liquifying them with a needle that injects their blood into the barnacle's shell. All the while, Cleo took pictures of us doing silly things. I really enjoyed floating on the waves as they pushed into a narrow rocky section. We then progressed to some higher jumps, which was the really fun part. We swam over to an old slate mine that had some of the buildings still remaining. We got to jump off of these old buildings, and it was pretty high up. Every time Jackie went in she would swallow salty sea water and come up coughing, apparently I grunted a lot, and Kristie let out blood curdling screams which amused us all. It was a fun day and our guides were really nice. We even had an audience when we jumped off the highest points.

We got done around noon and dried off while enjoying the sunshine and some hot chocolate. We thanked our guides and went to sit by the beach to eat lunch. We noticed that the tide had gone out while we were coasteering; apparently, the Pembrokeshire coast has some of the most distinct tidal changes. We got a cab ride to the train station at Haverford west, where we met Margaret. Our cab driver was very nice and told us even more about the area. It seems that people really love it there. We took a nice long train ride back to Cardiff and I really enjoyed he scenery on the way back. We saw great patches of beach that went for miles; I finally began to understand how much the tidal changes influenced the landscape. We got back to Cardiff just in time to grab a snack and go to class. Overall, an amazing weekend. I would recommend Pembrokeshire to anyone; it is beautiful with incredibly friendly people.