Coasteering in Newquay

Posted on August 10, 2007
Filed Under - adventures |

Yesterday I tried coasteering for the first time. Coasteering is about making your way along a coastline, exploring and having fun. You get from A to B by a combination of swimming and scrambling over the rocks. Every so often you stop to jump off the rocks from as high as you dare or explore the caves. If you’re lucky you’ll also see some marine wildlife such as seals and dolphins.There are a few companies in the Newquay area that run coasteering and there seems to be a bit of rivalry between them. As it’s a new sport, you’ve got various organisations around the country claiming to be the ones who invented it or brought it to a particular area. I did my session with Breathe Adventure, run by a South African guy called Rich. Nice dude, he is super laid-back but don’t be fooled: he knows what he’s doing and takes safety very seriously.

I tagged along with a group of air cadets, which was quite entertaining. There was plenty of shouting and squealing but they were nice kids and nobody arsed about. We had great weather – sunny, warm and calm seas. The water was a beautiful turquoise colour and it was really mellow to be ambling along (or whatever the swimming equivalent is). You don’t have to be a particularly strong swimmer as you are wearing a wetsuit and a buoyancy aid. I’ve been in the sea a lot recently and I’ve started to get used to the saltiness of the water and notice it less. The salt water was something I used to dislike about being in the sea – not just the taste but the way it stings your eyes. But you do get used to it, especially when you are doing an activity like surfing which entails getting dumped in the water on a regular basis.

For me, the cliff jumping was the highlight. We did several different jumps, working up from a few feet to about 20 feet – and if the tide had been higher, we could have gone above 30 feet. Some people really take to the cliff-jumping, others freak out a bit. Most of our group gamely gave it a go and it’s cool to watch someone who is really shitting themselves do the jump and come back up with a smile (albeit a slightly startled and drippy smile). I really enjoyed the jumps but there is always a moment, when you are at the top of the cliff preparing to jump and you look down, that you do get a twinge of fear. But the rush that you get from the actual fall is enough to make you want to go back up and do it again! The thing that surprises everyone is how long the fall seems to last. It seems like several seconds and you have time to feel the fall and see the landscape rushing past you. My favourite jump was the highest. It sounds perverse, but you need to get above a certain height to feel that sensation of just falling through space. With the lower jumps it’s more a case of: one moment you are standing on a rock, the next moment you are hitting the water.

I had an enjoyable morning. Coasteering is pretty easy, although if you are not very fit you might find all the swimming a bit tiring. The weather is probably a major factor as well. We had great weather so there was no battling with the elements and getting cold in an ill-fitting wetsuit. Instead it was a nice combination of mellow-ness interspersed with rush.

Stumble it!

Comments

Leave a Reply