Three Routes,

Two Italians,

1 Belay plate and

No Bananas

Racked up and cocooned in slings at the foot of the Sennen cliffs Angela and I approached our objective. I haven't a clue what it's called but it was a V Diff and a nice, easy intro to the day. Possibly a little too easy as the only way to 'liven' the route up was to name the gear as I went. All 'named' placements were successful apart from the 'Mary and Morag Memorial Sling', which,in spite of being wrapped around it, sneakily slipped off it's spike when I was about 15' above it. Anyway I reached the top safely, virtually tap-dancing up the last holds in the rain and set up a belay. I've never belayed on Italian hitches before and a steady Cornish drizzle did nothing to encourage me to learn but I guessed Angela would be pretty miffed if I got it wrong and after a few attempts I got it all sorted out. Angela romped up the route removing 'people' as she went. Excellent, now for the next climb.

I know this route had something to do with bananas but I certainly didn't find any. Instead all I got was an excellent V Diff with good holds all the way to the top.

Our next route, again nameless, involved a corner but I avoided this (and the huge puddle at the bottom) and climbed the wall to the left of it. It was all rather polished and all rather wet but pretty excellent all the same. In fact it was so good that I found myself yelling this to Angela just so she knew. Unfortunately the girl on the route next to me didn't share my enthusiasm being unable to remove a jammed friend and her mate insisting that she did etc etc. The language (and the accompanying noises) was quite an education! I tactfully carried on up and set a belay at the top and started to bring up Angela. Suddenly Angie stopped climbing and started yelling at me. Wondering what was wrong I tried to hear her but there was just too much noise. She shouted again but I still couldn't hear. She looked okay so I yelled for her to keep on climbing, which she did. In the meantime Girl on Next Route had topped out and was talking about how it really hadn't been that bad… Now I could make out what Angela was saying. Something about her being at the exact point where my bum had perfectly fitted between two rocks and it totally blocking out the light. Makes you wonder why you bother with belays sometimes!

By now it was distinctly damp and we decided there was only time for one more route. To the sound of the local foghorn I started up and could immediately feel that all was really quite soggy. I decided it was time for me to bail out and neatly sidestepped onto the 'Mary and Morag Memorial route' from earlier in the day. This time I whizzed up it in half the time with half the gear. Amazing what a bit of confidence does for you.

Walking out at sea level was our last adventure (just try rock boots on seaweed). No records broken, no standards set just a brilliant day dangling off the end of Cornwall.

Sarah