Today was beyond perfect! I did by far the coolest thing I've ever done in my life. We were picked up this morning and went to coasteer/sea level traverse on the Irish Sea. We all went to the Conway Centre, which is a little outdoor base and got geared up. We had to wear rash vests, wetsuits, waterproof shorts, a harness, a helmet, an outer layer shirt, trainers, and a life jacket. We had so many protective clothes on it was hard to move! We drove about 30 minutes on Anglesey to Holyhead, where there were some cliffs on the Irish Sea. The view was absolutely beautiful. The sea water was bright blue, you could see mountains in the background, and rough cliffs surrounded us. Coasteering or sea level traversing is when you basically rock climb on cliffs near the ocean. So most of the time if you fall, you will fall into the water because we weren't attached to harnesses at all. There were times that if we would have fallen, we would have hit the rocks hard on our way down. Our instructor, Sally, was awesome. She really challenged us and pushed us to conquer our fears. We spent all day climbing these cliffs on the Irish Sea, something I thought I would never get to do. And the weather was just perfect. The best day we've had since we've arrived in Wales! I love our group of 8. We all were so encouraging to one another today, even when we'd slip and fall several feet down into the water we'd cheer for and encourage each other. We jumped off of 25 foot tall cliffs, bridged over small crevices between high cliffs, and climbed really high up onto the steep slopes. I was quite nervous a couple of times because if any of us would have fallen we could have been seriously hurt, but that was the thrill of it all. It was the best day I could have ever imagined and I only came out with a few cuts and scrapes! Luckily, we get to go on another outdoor pursuits class with Sally next week! I cannot wait. There's so many amazing things to do outdoors here. Also, we met up with some Welsh students last night and that was really fun. There were about 5 of them that we talked with for hours. We went to the pub and talked about everything from cultural differences to politics to our career paths. They were so nice, and they even invited us back to their house for pizza at half past twelve at night! I loved getting to hear the ways they think of America; it's different to hear an outsider's view on our country. They were really up to date with American news, even more than I am at times. It was shocking to them that my dad makes a living off of selling guns because that idea is so foreign to them. Of course, they joked around with me about it the entire night but it was all in good fun. The last 24 hours here in Bangor have probably been some of the coolest of my entire life. I still can't believe I'm here getting to experience these things!
Before the fun began!
Before traversing down the cliff
Lunch time! The morning wore us out
Me making my way through the teeny crevice between two tall cliffs
The crevice we made it through. I swam out, but some climbed up and out!
Out instructor, Sally, and us bridging the crevice
Macey and I
The group after making our way out
What we climbed up and through
Some of the cliffs we coasteered
The Irish Sea
More of the cliffs we climbed
Before climbing up to jump off
On our way up
We were pretty high up there!
The 25 foot cliff before jumping off
Mid-air. So much fun! I could've done this all day
End of the day
Search and rescue helicopter. Perhaps Prince William
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