Deep water soloing and Blind folded climbing

(Sydney International Airport 1:30pm 10.28.08)
Early next morning (10.2.08) I was woke up by Jess lightly knocking on my door “Tim…. Tim” I answered and she asked if I could work again. I agreed and quickly got ready and grabbed breakfast. This time I was sent to do the transfer by myself and when we got back to tiger beach I was also sent out on the kayak tour by myself. I thought to myself, “wow, that was a quick training period!” I had around 16 kayakers and this time several people bought the photo package. I took them the same route we had done the day before it was quite challenging keeping everyone together with only one guide. After our break on the beach we headed back to the boat however two kayaks were trailing pretty far behind. The number were uneven so I had a girl on the front of my kayak and she had cut her finger while at the beach so she couldn’t paddle. I yelled back to the two kayaks to come along, they had tied their kayaks together and were playing tug-a-war. The lead kayaks had already made their way around a corner so I could no longer see them, which worried me a lil bit. I spun around and paddled to the trailing kayaks who didn’t listen and were still tied together. “Un-tie the f*cking kayaks and start paddling, the rest of the group is already around the corner!” Then I hightailed it back to the rest of the group. When I got around the corner I shocked to find that one of the kayaks was full of water and barely afloat while another couple was trying to help them get it back out of the water. Apparently they thought it would be funny to flip their friends kayak over in the middle of the channel. There was obviously no thought about the fact that these sit inside kayaks could easily fill up with water! The rest of the group was sitting in their kayaks watching and making jokes so I told them to paddle back to the boat around the corner. I honestly didn’t think we were going to be able to get the boat back out of the water. However we some how managed, after several unsuccessful attempts, to get just enough water out to allow them to paddle back. Back on the boat I told Slo and Jess about my kayak tour from hell and started to question whether or not I was willing to be a kayak guide. The problem is that is in Southeast Asia people get accustomed to not having any rules. In countries like these pretty much anything goes if you are a westerner spending money. So I would basically be dealing with college aged kids that were are just looking to get shit faced and party everyday, most of who are hung over or drinking on the kayak tour. I big difference than the cliental I’m use to on Maui. Later at the bar I decided rather than refusing drinks when people offer to buy me a shot, I’d just do a shot of “vodka” (water in a vodka bottle) and keep the money from the shot. I ended up making a decent amount of money with my new plan coupled with the tip jar I decided to put out. Next morning (10.3.08) I went out on the tour myself. There were no climbers and only two kayakers. I decided that rather than taking the normal route I would start to explore the area a little bit. I decided to bring Mr. Tien a Vietnamese guy along as a safety incase we got lost in the maze of islands so he could speak to some of the fisherman and get us back where we needed to be. After lunch I gave the guys the option to kayak more, hang at the beach or head back to Cat Ba early since they were the only ones on the tour. They opted to head back early. When I got back Jess and Luke were on their way to climb at the harbor so I tagged along to take pictures and attempt some more climbing. I tried a route called “animal” which is rated 7B and got shut down not even half way up. It was a pretty technical climb they told me and I realized that climbing is a very humbling sport! With only two people on the tour it proved to be a quiet night at the bar so I closed around 11pm so I could get some sleep. Next Morning (10. 4.08) I woke up around 11am and used the day to catch up on emails that had been neglected due to my work all day and all night schedule I had the 3 days prior. In the afternoon Luke, Dinh and I headed back to the harbor for some climbing. I was really disappointed as I began to climb and realized the shoes I had on had almost no grip whatsoever. I made it where I had been shut down the day before but only attempted it once before giving up due to the shitty shoes I had on. I really didn’t have a shot in the world making any progress with those shoes on. I caught a ride back to Noble house with the tour group that had just pulled up to the dock and got ready for a night at the bar. Next morning (10.5.08) it was back to the old routine of waking up at 7am to play kayak guide. Another small group of 3 allowed for more exploring of new routes and I was thoroughly impressed with what I had found. Towards the beginning of the tour I saw a small A-frame passage through the side of one of the islands that were able to paddle through. Then around the corner I found a nice rock face that looked perfect for deep water solo’ing. Solo’ing is when you climb without harness or ropes and deep water just means you do it over water so when you fall or let go you simply hit water instead of rocks! We paddled on and found a beach to stop. I swam across the channel and attempted to do some solo’ing on another face but wasn’t able to get more that 10 feet up the wall. Which was probably good since the water wasn’t sooo deep. I fell once and cut myself on the oyster shells on the rocks underwater which convinced to give up. As we paddled back I asked the guys if they would be ok with me attempting to solo the first face I found. They agreed so I showed one of them how to work my camera and paddled over to the wall. I started the climb from my kayak and was soon about 40 feet up the wall. It looked a lot higher from up there. I decided that it was probably high enough and leaped outwards for the water below!!! Back at boat we joined the climbers for lunch and I pitched them on a photo package for climbing. There was one taker so I climbed the 5th route and took pictures as she climbed up the 4th. They turned out pretty good and I was able to get some pics of Luke and Tim climbing a separate, harder, route as well. Somehow we got to betting on who could climb which routes and so on, I ended up betting Joe that he couldn’t climb the 5th route blindfolded and to my surprise he took the bet. The prize: one pack of oriel cookies! The negotiations over the rules began: “ok you only get 10 minutes” I told him. “No, no, no. No time limit. And Luke gets to coach me through it” he responded. “Ok 15 minutes and Luke can only tell you whether you are hot or cold” I countered. We finally settled on 18 minutes and Luke only being able to say the two words: Hot or Cold. To mine, and I think everyone there’s, surprise…. He actually climbed the entire route blind folded!!!! Now is a good time to mention that Joe was once one of the top climbers in the world. Again after 10 hours at "work" i ended the night with another night at the bar!