High Ropes - 06/14

High Ropes Rescue Refresher

Instructors - Askea O' Dowd, Me (Emmet Ó Seochrú)

When I got the job in Killarney High Ropes I had to do a small refresher with the boss just to show that I still knew what I was doing after my year working at Zipit Forest Adventures in Lough Key, Co. Roscommon. My Boss Askea Told me to do the course first just so I knew how it went before doing rescues. This course was very different to Zipits courses as this one had a hook and caribeaner system where as Zipit had the 'bornack' system. 

It took me about an hour to do the course and after that we went straight into training. We went up onto the first obstacle which was a tight rope. Here Caroline acted as the person being rescued and I had to do it. 

She had to act as if she was stuck on the platform before the tight rope and was too scared to move on. I then had the set up the I.D (gri gri) 

and lower her down. She also had to act to be scared of the I.D so that made it even trickier. When that was a success we moved on to the next rescue. 

Here Caroline slipped on the tight rope and I had to go out and rescue her. These kind of rescues are a lot harder as you as the rescuer has to balance on the obstacle while rescuing the person. Here I had to set up the I.D off the belay cable and lower her down that way. This can also cause problems as your own carribeaners are on the same cable so when you lower the person off that cable, the weight of them can throw you off balance. This was also a success though as I was able to get Caroline down safely while keeping my balance at the same time.

The last rescue I had to do was when Caroline was suspended in the middle of a zip line and not able to move either way. Here Askea was telling me to stand on one platform on either one side or the other and throw a rope with a carribeaner on it to the subject. the subject should then hook it onto themselves and I then pull them in. 

I completely disagreed with this and showed her what I thought should be done. I zipped out to her in the middle of the line, hooked one of my carribeaners onto her and then pulled her all the way in. This is way quicker and also a lot safer. 

Snorkelling - 14-15/15

Snorkelling Lanzarote 

Instructor - Maria McKay

Day 1: 

We arrived in Lanzarote earlier today and decided straight away that we would go snorkelling somewhere. We decided to head over to the south west coast of the Island to an area called Papa Gayo. This area had two beaches, one really big and busy, with the other being nice and small with only a few people. Today we decided to go to the bigger one. Little did we know it was also a nudist beach, I kept the slacks on. 

Old watch tower at the top of the beach.

We decided to get in straight away and start snorkelling along the coast line. This was by far the clearest water I was ever snorkelling in. About 10m visibility at least. We didn't see much life at the start except for this school of silvery coloured fish with bright yellow eyes. They had no fear whatsoever and would swim in and around you without getting scared. After doing some research I think these were called 'striped large eyed beams'. Easily recognisable by yellow eyes and yellow on its back. 

Striped Large eyed beams.

After continuing on we also came across loads of sea cucumbers. I've only ever seen one when snorkelling in Kerry but there were easily 50 here. They get their names from looking like a cucumber with a soft leathery body 

Sea Cucumber.

Day 2:

Today we decided to come back to Papa Gayo but this time we went to the other smaller beach. This was amazing as it wasn't as crowded and the water was still as clear. Today we went out to a small reef just out from the beach where we saw two species of really colourful  fish. One of these fish was called an 'Ornate Wrasse'. This fish looks like a glowing arrangement of neon lights. 

Ornate Wrasse

The other really colourful fish we saw was called a 'canary damselfish'. This was by far my favourite that I have seen on this holiday. It was mainly black but had ultra violet tips on its fins. These fish were also very comfortable around us. 

Canary Damselfish

After exploring this side of the reef we decided to head even further out towards the other side of the reef. This was amazing and full of life out there. It actually became quite intimidating as there was a minefield of black sea urchins of all sizes. 

Heading for a look.

Soon turned around.

After admittedly getting scared of being on lowish water around these bad boys we decided to head back with our tails between our legs. 

Sailing - 06/15

Sailing

Instructor - Josh Fitzgerald

Today I decided to head out for a sail with Josh after we finished work. I have been meaning to get back into sailing for ages and even go for my pre-entry at some stage so this was pretty cool.
We started off by bringing the picos down to the pier and rigging up there. These boats are really easy to rig up so it only took us about 5 minutes. After this we headed off out the bay for a belt around. Dan then arrived for a spin in the rib so he stayed with us for the rest of the session. This was handy because I got to do my 'coming along side' manoeuvre with the rib. After a few times of doing this I had it nailed. I then moved onto the man overboard manoeuvre where josh threw out about 6 tennis balls and we had to pick them up out of the water with the boom on the opposite side. 

After this Josh brought me out to the back of the island where we set out a triangular course and had a race. Dan came out with us in the rib and acted as the start line and......referee :) 
This was really good fun as the wind had died down anyway. It's all about how well you start and how well your line is going in the each turn. After this we decided to head back and finish the session so as we had the wind against us Dan gave us a tow in. 

Surfing - 07/15

Surfing Carrmore

Instructor - Jarlath McHale


Today we decided to head to Carrowmore for a surf. The conditions weren't great with a lot of dumping waves but we tried to make the most of it. As I hadn't been surfing in a long time I was itching to go and especially since I treated myself to an awesome birthday present. 

Happy Out

Jarlath was a actually really helpful with my pop up. He had a look at me surfing a few waves first and then let me know what was going wrong. I was actually bring my front foot around my arm instead of through which really annoyed me when I tried to correct it. We surfed a few small waves at the start but when they got too small we brought the body boards in for a splash about. It was actually my first time body boarding so that was pretty cool. 
Shortly after this the waves picked up again and we brought the boards back in. This time the waves were breaking slightly cleaner so it was a lot more fun. I eventually got my pop up fixed as well which was a massive bonus. 

Wakeboarding - 07/14

Wakeboarding

Instructor - John Hynes

When working at Star Outdoors we only brought groups wake boarding the odd time when they booked ahead. Because we didn't get to do it much John decided to bring us out after work on a Wednesday evening to give us a taster session. This was really cool as I was really keen to try it for a long time. We began by heading out the bay in the boat and then setting it all up. we started by having a go on the knee board first because it was easier......slighlty :) 
This was really cool as it gave us an idea of how it felt in the wake. John went first to show us how its done and by god did he do just that. For a man that claimed he had a bad back earlier on in the day, it wasn't stopping his 360 spins and jumps on the knee board.

Joe Pigott had a go after John and got it straight away. I went after Joe but kept letting go of the rope. After about 5 times of letting go I finally got it. I figured out that I was leaning forward straight away rather than leaning back and thats what it was that was making me let go. 
The feeling of finally getting the hang of it was class. I went for about 3 minutes before getting cocky and trying to do a jump across the wake. I probably jumped a couple of millimetres but it felt like I went 20ft up. After we all had a go of the knee board we decided to move on to the wakeboard. This was a totally different kettle of fish. Similar technique of leaning back before getting up but a lot harder to start on your feet. We all got it eventually but I reckon if I had a little longer with the knee board I'd have nailed some kind of technique. 

Snorkelling Coonanna Harbour - 09/15

Snorkelling

Location - Coonana Harbour, Co. Kerry

Instructors - Maria McKay, Liz Lydon


Today was meant to be really bad weather but when we eventually got out of bed it was nice enough for a snorkel. We got in at the right side of the pier at about 2 o' clock and headed off towards the left side. 

Coonana Harbour

Visibility was actually a lot worse than what we thought it would be so it was fairly disappointing. We did see a lot of sea urchins, anenomies and wrass. As I was still waiting to be assessed on my snorkel guide we decided to go through some of the skills involved. Here we did some scenarios where either Liz or Mia would pretend to go unconscious and I'd have to save them. We also did some finning techniques as I found that i was struggling with the swim in the practice for the assessment before. I decided to do lengths from one point to the other but still found it very tiring. In the assessment you have to fin for 40 lengths of the pool in 20 minutes. The last time I tried this I got as far as 35 lengths and I was pushing it at that. 
As the visibility seemed to get worse and worse we decided to call it a day after that and did a bit of pier jumping to finish off. This was really good fun until I landed on my side after one jump and that was me done. 

This was the jump. 

Sea Kayaking - 07/14

Sea Kayaking

Instructor - Matthew Kelleher


We began our trip at the pier at Star Outdoors Kenmare and heading down towards Kenmare town. This was my first time in a sea kayak since having a bad experience in delphi shortly before so I was nervous to say the least. What made it much better was the fact that it was perfect calm conditions. On our way down Matt was kind enough to be extremely patient with the pace at which I was moving and also the amount of nervous expletives being thrown around the place.


On our way down we saw hundreds of 'Compass Jellyfish'. These are definitely the most common in Ireland but their sting is only similar to a nettle sting. 

When we got to the bridge we decided to head back up the bay to hopefully sea the seal colony. Half way back up the bay it we got a small wind against us and I ended up going over. This was so frustrating as I was doing so well and building confidence again. We continued on up the bay and saw one common seal. Apparently the seal colonies hadn't been around as much as other years. After this we headed back to Star but as it was on spring tides it was extremely low on the way and when we were about 100m from the pier we ended up having to hop out and drag our boats through silt.