Swanage is on the south coast, so far south in fact you'll probably find yourself on a French phone network! Aside from the southern disadvantage Swanage provides some fairly exciting sea cliff climbing, as the following will illustrate...
Following our arrival, and subsequent failure to get the minibus locked, we headed off along the coastalpath with our fingers crossed that the minibus and our belongings would still be there when we got back! After almost everyone had managed to fall on their arses in the mud, Jesse more so than others, we arrived at our climbing location. Nervously peering over the edge revealed that the sea was in fact quite rough, but undeterred we geared up and down climbed to the ledge we were going to be starting the routes from, 1 or 2 metres above the breaking waves, a comfortable distance...or so it appeared.
Jesse and Molly headed off up their routes leaving Heather and I belaying on the ledge below as the waves crashed against the base of the cliffs occasionally giving our feet a gentle reminder that we were quite close to the sea. After 5 minutes or so it became apparent that the waves were definitely increasing in size, as the frequentcy with which our feet got a soaking increased. Pushing this fact aside we carried on belaying keeping a careful eye on the waves behind us. Suddenly a larger wave crest appeared heading for the base of the crag, Heather noticed it aswell, it was clear this one was going to be a bit bigger than the last few, but there was very little we could do but keep belaying. The wave crashed into the cliff below us sending water well over a metre over our heads, as we watched the water shoot up behind us a torrent of expletives were yelled as we braced ourselves and the sea water came crashing over us, throwing us both bodily into the rock and completely soaking us, the water being high enough to go staight down the necks of our jackets, despite them being zipped up to the top. The water drained away leaving us both looking rather bedraggled and completely soaked, looking up at the route revealed at least the bottom 2 metres now dripping with water, and Jesse looking back down at us asking if we were ok.
The rest of the route was completed without incident, after arriving at the top and switching into a mixture of different peoples dry clothes we began to warm up and immediately vetoed continuing sea cliff climbing. As a compromise we headed further along the coast to Dancing Ledge to do some sports routes, but eventually the water got to us there too and we were rained off back to the minibus, which thankfully was still there when we got back!
Alistair