Wednesday, October 8, 2008

Deep Water Solo Festival Costa Blanca 08

(Report written by Rich Mayfield )

The 14
th to 20th of September saw our 4th Deep Water Solo event, this time the organization went out to Rock and Rapid Adventures which meant our normal small gathering grew to over 40 people. Special guests included James Pearson and Gibbon Slacklines from Germany.

Monday we travelled to Cala Moraig which makes for an easy introduction to the sport, good food and beer at the beach cafes, ensured a mellow day.

Nice end to the first day!

Kayaks and pedalos bobbing about in the water, proved useful as a female member of the team jumped off the Cave of Pets and hurt her back. (note to self: must warm up before taking big jumps) 30 minutes later lying on the beach and she can´t move. The help of the local life guard is enlisted, who looks uncannily like the Fonzie from Happy days. Ehhhhhhh! An ambulance whisks her to hospital. She is kept in over night for observation.

James playing with the other boys

I´d bolted the arch a few months ago for the Slack liners but on inspection they seemed to have evaporated! Wheel brace from the van and the loan of two bolts from the other slack line saw us in action. 15m long and 2 m high, only the Gibbons can walk it but most of us give it a go anyway. The Fonzie, somewhat paranoid about our antics, watches from a distance and declines our offer for him to have a go.

Ambolo is the location for Tuesday, and the call goes out “Mankini DAY!” So a quick trip to Carrefour´s mankini section. Now Ambolo is a gay nudist beach and I have felt a little uncomfortable there on previous trips. But today was to be different, after mankini- ing up the locals decide to vacate our half of the beach. We mostly play on the small island just off the beach, a beautiful little arch a few metres high, a couple of sumps to swim through and another long slack line.

Wednesday was a day off to let the water logged skin recover slightly, Keith organized the Bridge swing at the Mascarat Gorge.

That evening was the Cowboys and saloon girls BBQ, only one naked (well he kept his chaps on) cowboy in the pool so we did well. Some guys turned up as cows, don´t think they really understood what was going on, but it did make us laugh.

Thursday I´m on the Penon de Ifach with two clients. Gibbon give a demo and early morning master class in Slack lining. The team head back to the main cave at Ambolo with all the inflatable’s they can muster. Gibbon are on a roll with another new line set up.

The last day came too soon and we headed back to Cala Moraig, James made short work of the 7b`s and c´s, we find an awesomely steep and pocketed prow but can´t quite complete it, it´ll still be there next year. By this stage most of us were starting to feel the strain. SO….. just enough time for one more party, Hugh Hefner night, the girls look fantastic and so did the boys dressed as girls enough said. Roll on next September!

Spot the odd one out!!

2 comments:

Carlos said...

Hi friend.

I like slack-lining and I want to walk on these water line. Where is it?.

Thank you very much.

(if you want to climb in "Castellet" (Castellón) or play with a sea-kayak ... come to Castellón ;-))

Dave Nelson said...

That slack line looks super fun, i want to be there, I'm jealous. Plus deep water solo, only makes it a better. looks to be a blast. I'm going to have to go there someday