In my opinion the most fascinating historical characteristic of this island and the greater Dodecanese is the sponge fishing; this area was once considered the sponge capital of the world and fishing for sponges (yes they are in fact animals not plants) began here around 700bc. The Shepard man spoke of his grandfather the sponge diver, he would plunge into the water naked and unaided, all he had with him was a net in which to collect sponges and a heavy, flat stone called a skandalopetra attached by rope to the boat above. Relying purely on a lungful of air and raw courage, he thought nothing of plunging to depths of up to 30 meters. The invention of the bronze-helmeted diving suit or skafandr in the mid-19th century enabled men to gather sponges from much greater depths – but at a terrible cost. Tragically, the dangers of surfacing too quickly were not realized until countless divers had already died or been paralyzed as a result of the bends or decompression sickness. Sponge collecting in the Dodecanese has since plummeted, partially due to the introduction of synthetic sponges but largely due to some type of blight that almost wiped out the sea sponges of the Aegean.

 Glancing down from where the Shepard sat I noticed a glorious pile of used toilet paper garnishing a years worth human excrement. The Shepard must have sensed my distain because he kicked some rocks at the pile and cursed something about pulling t.p. from a goat’s mouth. It’s pretty disgusting actually, why can’t people crap at home before they go to the crag, or at the very least pack out the spent wipes? And while I’m on a rant WTF is up with the Euro belay? No it is not cool to put a jacket on while

your boyfriend is at “rest" yeah I know you have a Grigri, but rock breaks…duh. I know I’m not the only person that has noticed the rapid increase of climbing accidents – on Kalymnos alone accidents have more than doubled this year; lowering off the end of the rope, ground falls from bad belay technique and anchor failures have mostly been to blame. In fact I even had a climber arguing my sentiments for safety. Please be carful folks! 

Now about the climbing; my vision before taking this trip was to NOT get wrapped up in projects, 3 try rule. I really just wanted to get in as many pitches of good climbing as possible, or in other words, have fun! The climbing in Kalymnos is really, really good and lends itself well for onsite climbing – lots of big rests on pretty much every route. Seemed to me the longer routes that rode big stalactites out roofs were quite a bit easier than the grade would imply compared to the shorter, say under 20 meter, climbs. But whatever, definitely the best tuffa wrestling, stalactite rodeo’in I have ever done! Out of the 25 days Jessa and I spent on the island, I sampled around 100 pitches throughout the grade range of 5a-8c and visited 18 different sectors. Fellow Hardwear athlete Neil Gresham put on a fundraiser slide show, it just so happened I had a stack of Mountain Hardwear goodies to add to the raffle - the fundraiser yielded around 800 euros for the bolt fund. Did you donate to the fund while you were in Kalymnos, in fact, have you ever given time or money to any Climbers Coalition? I also managed to wreck a scooter, spent many hours swimming in the Aegean, and made many new friends; always my favorite part of the trip I take.