Deep Sea Soloing!!!

We had an eventful few days at Ton Sai on the Railay Peninsula. We went deep water soloing on Tuesday with our 8 newly acquired friends. We all climbed aboard a longtail boat and drove out to an island about 20 minutes away, anchored the boat 50 feet from a huge overhanging wall with lots of holds, and then 2 by 2 they put us in a kayak and paddled us to the base. There was a little rope to help us get on the cliff. I traversed right and then climbed up to a big stalagtite, climbed onto it and then realized I was 30 feet above the water, so I jumped in. There was lots of routes to climb, all overhanging with big holds. They took us to another cliff where 3 of us ended up climbing about 5.10a up to 40 feet high, traversing 15 feet to a ledge, and then (after a lot of thought & encouragement) jumped off. I didn’t quite land right, and ended up having a sore neck the next day. We all climbed around 4 routes, then took the boat to a little secluded beach for lunch and to do some steep bouldering and snorkeling. It was quite an experience, especially for about $15/each.
The next day, we all decided to rent sea kayaks and explore the deep sea soloing nearby. We didn’t realize how hard it is to kayak, and also that the first storm in a week was about to start. The waves got big (3 feet tall) right as we got out to the island, and it was almost impossible to paddle back against the wind. We found a calm spot of water sheltered from the wind by the island, and waited for about 20 minutes for the storm to pass by holding onto the cliff. It was a little scary, but the storm passed and we found a big stalagtite hanging about 4 feet above the water with a rope hanging from it. The hardest move was from the kayak to the stalagtite, and then to get your feet onto it. Once you did that, you could climb as high as you wanted, even circling the stalagtite, and then jump off. We found a few other spots as well, but we mainly enjoyed kayaking around and fighting the wind and the waves. We realized how powerful the ocean is, even in the calm waters at Ton Sai.
We took it easy that night and ate and talked with our friends. They are from Germany, Austria, and Switzerland and luckily they all speak some form of English. It was very interesting hearing all their stories. We even got to share a little what Christianity really is. Their view was really tainted by the Roman Catholic Church. They sounded really excited at the idea of a church like Flatirons and the gift of love and grace that Jesus gives us.
Today, we took a boat and then a bus back to Phuket (Nai Yang Beach), picked up Ashley’s bag (it showed up!!!) and will stay here tonight. In true ashley style, we now lost the camera so, no pictures for a while. Tomorrow we will take the bus to Bangkok (13 hour trip). We decided we’d try it since we have time and it’s a lot cheaper. We can take a plane from there or, if we like the bus, we can take another 10 hour bus to Chiang Rai.
Another good experience we didn’t mention yet was my foot. I sliced my pinky toe on some coral. We tried to clean it, but it was deep. By the next day it was swollen and red and my foot started getting red as well and I even started to feel pain in weird places on my leg. The cut was obviously infected, & I’d never had anything like this. We found a pharmacy and the girl spoke good English and said, “you take this pill 4 time a day for 5 day, clean the cut 2 time a day with betadine, and, don’t worry, it get better. I have seen this many time”. And, it worked. The antibiotic pills, bandaids, antibiotic cream, betadine, and ibuprofen cost $18. That’s a good deal.