Kiting and climbing. Like fire and water if it is about getting my free time in their favor. Kiting is still in a slight advantage, but because here are mostly the same uncertain wind conditions during the whole year, it can lose it very quickly, because rocks are always there J They are there, that’s true, but what is around is also important. Up to April, May there was nice 35 degrees and fresh breeze up the hill. But now there is 45 and hot wind. The rocks could be in shade but it is just not enough. Fortunately Mike thought about another strong feature that UAE can offer. Indian ocean with dry cliffs steeply falling into the water. DWS paradise in these furnace days.
Deep Water Solo is a type of climbing on vertical or better overhanging sea cliffs without any ropes or belaying. After swimming to the rock you start climbing up and if you are out of power of you slip, you just fall softly into the water J And if you reach the top, you jump down again. No slow roping down!!
So one sunny Friday 13 climbers of all levels boarded an Omani speed boat with Omani pilot and following captain Mike’s orders we knocked off from Dibba port to have some active relaxation after busy week.
But the first stop wasn’t a climbing spot but a strangely white rock like made of chalk. “Who wants to jump from the 16 meter cliff let’s go” commanded Mike and a group of five brave ones start climbing up to the highest point. The trick in jumping from really high spots is that you start from 3 meters, then from 5, then 6, 8, 10, 13, 16, …and somehow after this sequence of jumps the last one just doesn’t look that high. But this wasn’t unfortunately the case.
My last high jump, true… it was higher than this, was almost one year ago in Croatia, so this 16 meters looked really high and scary. But Mike is passing this place almost every weekend so he jumped with perfect technique without hesitation. That was the impulse I needed, “If you don’t jump you will look like a coward” I heard the strongest motivation I know inside my head, which always works on me and I jumped also. Nasim probably heard the same thing, but problem was that she has never jumped from such a height, so her jump/fall was quite scary. But fortunately everybody survived and we could continue to the real purpose of our trip.
There are many spots for climbing along the coast and every good one has a name. Unfortunately I am not familiar with all of them so the first rock we visited was just “The first rock” J
I saw some DWS videos on YouTube so I knew what to do. I jumped into the water among the first eager climbers, swam to the cliff and wanted to start going up. But then I immediately found out something what hasn’t been shown on internet!! The hardest is actually the move from the water onto the rock. You are swimming in deep water next to the rock undermined by tide, with legs nowhere to put other than where your eyes are. So you use a wave to lift you up, you grab a hold and then the returning wave is literally sucking you down, so unless you have the hand in a good pocket you are back where you started with a few scratches from sharp shells lurking on the edge.
But I managed to find a spot where it was quite easy to get from the water and then it was easy J Nice, free climbing on natural rock up and same soft free fall down. We did all possible routes on this rather small stack and moved to one low area where you climb traverse maximum two meters above the water.
Mildly cooling sea temperature, challenging climbing, beer in the fridge, warm sun above, comfortable boat and same like-minded people around made sure that I forgot about all unpleasant things that lately were starting to emerge and enjoyed to the last piece the moment of perfect active relaxation already looking forward to next Friday J
Why we didn’t go for two days and didn’t camp on one of many isolated and idyllic beaches in deep bays? Because probably not only me is working six days a week!! But hopefully only up to the end of July. Maybe some other day!
Next Friday we boarded more people, took a bigger boat and did almost the same circle. We only changed “The First rock” for ‘The Sea stack”. Same weather, same people, only slower boat which brings more time chilling out on the deck J
What to say more…Somebody could rise a typical question “Is it worth it to drive 200 kilometers to the port and one hour in the boat each way for couple of hours of sweating on the hot stone?” “Why do you do that? Look at your hands..full of scratches!” Simple question of priorities J Picture of climbing JIRI on Facebook or picture of Brad Pitt on DVD cover in the shelf? And trust me…there is nobody asking such questions where we go J
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