Isle of Man Again...

I've been in the Isle of Man. It really is a funny little place full of weird people with strange insular views. It's like little Englanders, but even more little, crazy.
Anyway I find my regular jaunts over there quite dull to be honest. There is climbing but it's not amazing and as I invariably lack my own transportation and have to rely on lifts and favours worked around rain and tides things rapidly get frustating.
Anyway the amazing thing about going to the Isle of Man is the chance to climb with a genuine, proper, belts and braces legend. Dougie Hall. This is the man whose diary was published and called the Chew Valley guide. He is everything I want from a legend, possessed of an enviable climbing heritage, short, friendly and devoid of any dress sense. Brilliant. Anyway we had an evening out climbing at Santon in a little gully along the side of a small bay reached by scrambling down a wall of vertical grass after walking for half a mile along the cliff top path and stopping at a point that looked exactly like every other point on the path. You could spend a lifetime searching for this venue and never find it, but then thats what climbing's like here. The occassional gem in the midst of a lot of pap. Anyway I spent an enjoyable couple of hours in the local climbers company, and very nice it was so cheers chaps.
I also revisited Laxey boulders and reclimbed a few problems that I have previously tried and also finally managed to force my way across a traverse that has become something of an Isle of Man obsession. I have mentioned it previously here, and at the time I suggested a grade of 8A. Well now it's done I'm going to stick with that. It felt very hard to me, easily as hard as problems of that grade that I've done recently. However it is not really in a style that suits me, being very powerfull and fingery. Anyway there we go, if people want to journey to the Isle of Man and repeat this problem and downgrade it then knock yourselves out. I've even done a PDF guide which I'll put on the Vimeo UKB group.
And now I'm back home and the weather has been awful. Ho-hum, of to Ravens Tor on Tuesday evening to (try and) crush Ben's Roof. Then on Thursday I may possibly be back that way (or Rubicon) to either try some more bouldering or get on some sport!!

NOTE:
1) Not everyone from the Isle of Man is mental, lots of them are very nice and the climbers there are an enthusiastic and welcoming bunch. But there's lots of nutters.