Weekend of fun

That's what this weekend has been so far.

Yesterday I went to the beach with some friends. What's interesting about the beaches of southern Spain is that instead of sand, they have little tiny pebbles. At first I thought that would be a bad thing, but soon I came to love the little rocks. They are easy to brush off, they don't get into your sandwich and they are really nice to lay on. But not only are the beaches covered in lovely little pebbles, the water is incredibly clear. Now to all you Caribbean losers this may not sound all that special. But to a North Carolina beach boy like myself, clear water is rare.

You can see the bottom from over 20 feet up (on a great day you may be able to see 4 or 5 feet down in NC) and the water gets really deep really fast. It is actually a little scary because you will swim out about 20 feet and all of a sudden the water is 5 feet above your head; swim any further and you can't touch the bottom even if you want to. Also on the beach that we went to there is a little rock peninsula that is known around Spain for it's great cliff jumping. You can climb up from the water and before you know it you are ready to do a 35 foot jump into a school of fish. We are going back on Tuesday so I will take some pictures / video of us jumping.

Today I went climbing with my friend Aaron and a friend of his named David. David is from Brittan. Little did I know, Granada has some radonk climbing spots. And there is a wide range of difficulties. Today I did my first lead climb. Lead climbing, as opposed to top roping, is where you set your own anchors in the rock or anchor into screws on the wall. This is a little more legit because with top roping the most you can fall is a couple feet because the rope is anchored above you. But with lead climbing the anchors are below you and may be 10 feet apart. So when you fall, you fall however far above the last anchor you are, times two because all the rope that was there is now slack, plus the stretch in the rope. SO if you are 10 feet above your last anchor you will probably fall 22 feet.

Normally the anchors are a little closer than that, but no matter what; the danger is a little more real. Tonight there is a party for some people that are going home for a year. And I am sure that will be fun too. So thank the Lord for a good weekend so far.