There’s nothing quite like a good spelunking on Christmas Eve

Seasons Greetings

Merry Christmas everyone. I hope you have a fantastic holiday and manage to spend your time with loved ones.

May the New Year bring you bigger and better things.

Spelunking

Yesterday I went spelunking with Gordon, Nani and Dinko. We went to the caves at Kalk Bay, and ended up doing Ronan’s Well, exiting at Robin Hood Cavern.

Gordon, Myself, Dinko and Nani preparing to get into small spaces

This is the second time I have been caving, and it was far more pleasant than the first time. I can’t figure out why, as we had just as many tight spots, and they were between rock, and not rock and sand. Perhaps it was due to me knowing what to expect, and also knowing that it would take a lot for us to have as big an epic as Dinko had when they got lost in Ronan’s Well and ran out of torch power.

A Dinko wedgie

As far as the experience goes, there were quite a few cruxes on the Ronan’s Well side. I did manage to get my hips stuck often, and I recall being in one position for about 10 minutes very slowly edging millimeter by millimeter through and resting every so often.

The technique I used for these passages was the classic ‘Superman’ technique, where you have one arm extended forward, and one behind. Apparently the crux here is to not bend your front arm’s elbow!!

Stuck hips, Superman style

I found that because I have unstable shoulders, they popped a couple of times. Since the adrenaline was pumping, I didn’t feel the pain that I should have. Perhaps this is not the sport for me, but then again, neither are climbing or squash good for my shoulder.

The other annoyance was wearing a single piece overall. This further restricted my arm movement, but in certain places, it helped me use my arms to pull my hips and legs forward.

Hug that wall Nani

Our slight (almost) epic was not being able to find the exit, despite passing people who entered through it!! This turned out to be fun though, as we ended up doing more exploring than we planned to. Many dead ends were encountered where the rocks looked unstable, and it was rather damp.

Gordon, on a good day

Ponta Malongane

In November, Gordon, Liza and I decided to take a week off and go diving in Mozambique. Well, actually, we had been planning this for quite a while.

Gordon, hanging around

Myself and Liza

We flew up to Johannesburg, where Liza’s sister kindly lent us her car for the week. We drove to the Kozi Bay border post, where we parked the car. The resort picked us up and deposited us at our accommodation.

Nemo’s, or Clown fish

All in all, we spent each day, apart from the first doing at least one dive, but normally two. I did 7 dives in total, with two of them at advanced sites. The resort is absolutely fantastic for diving. They are very well kitted out as far as facilities go and run the dive camp well.

Emperor fish

The diving was awesome. Definitely the best diving I’ve ever had. The memorable things that we saw were Sting rays, Morey eels, Potato bass, Turtle, Angel Fish, Clown Fish, Emperor Fish…

Random other stuff

Other things that I should have blogged about, but didn’t here, here and here.