ARRAN

Had a couple of cold days doing more guidebook stuff.

MULL

I still haven’t done several routes at Gribun that will be hard for me, I’ve tried them a few times so will maybe do them some day. Went there with Pete before another of his visits to Ulva, the weather was poor so I didn’t expect to get anything done but we did three routes.

Another doubtful Gribun evening in the drizzle I did a new route with Cynthia (Cynthia photo).

I had a couple of visits to Erraid to take photos, an otter hadn’t finished a lobster below a climb called Sentinel.

Also took photos of a number of other crags on Mull.

LOCHABER

Went back to the ‘new’ crag near Lochailort a couple of times, and went up Stob a Choire Mheadhoin and Stob Coire Easain one day because the weather was poor for climbing.

Blackwater reservoir and Buachaille can be seen in the photo below.

TORRIDON

We had a couple of days climbing with Todd and Donette from California.

SKYE

We’ve continued to add routes to Poly Wall and had a day in Coire a’ Ghrunnda forty five years after Stephen Kennedy and I first climbed together on Skye.

BEASTS

Found a willow warbler nest in the garden.

Went to Kintra to look at a new E5 (and a dead animal). I sent Joe my photos, he was fairly sure it was a Cuvier’s beaked whale. According to Wikipedia this species has the record for the deepest dive of any mammal at 2,992m and the longest at two hours 17 minutes.

I’ve found work hard this summer but contracting Lyme disease has possibly made it worse, I didn’t get any ticks last year but had several this year.

There seem to be two groups of people. Many say Lyme is not common, the rest of us think differently and know numerous people who have had Lyme disease.