So, today marks yet another Kalymnos rest day for Eddie and I…. which this time meant exploring, scooting, and learning about Kalymnian history. Coooooooooool.

We ventured via scooter into  Pothia this morning to visit two museums: a cultural museum, and an archeological museum.  At the cultural museum (the only museum that you can take pictures in) we are so awesome that we left our camera inside our scooter.  Nonetheless, inside, we learned all about the history of Kalymnos, which revolves largely around the sponge fishing industry.  The waters surrounding the island were previously rich in marine life particularly sponges, which sparked the Kalaymnian economy and made the island world famous.  Approximately 20 years ago, disease spread throughout the sponge colonies, and divers found the sponges already dead on the mediterranean floor.  Super sad. Prior to the sponge epidemic, the fishing industry thrived, and became the most common vocation of Kalymnian men.  Nine men composed a typical sponge fishing team.  Some were divers, the youngest and fittest members of the team, others were engineers who vigorously pumped and monitored the oxygen levels of the divers, and the captain and crew who would navigate the ship towards the waters most rich in sponge life.  The livelihood of the team depended equally on all members of the crew to perform very well, as all the profits were shared equally.  The job of a sponge fishing team was a dangerous aquatic adventure.  Teams had to navigate harsh sea conditions, as well as sharks and other aggressive fish, to find the docile beautiful sea creature they sought: the sponge.  A sponge in its natural environment is actually black, and smells of rubber.  This black coating is removed from the sponges before they are exported, because otherwise they would become dry and hard, almost petrified looking.  The sponges are washed again, using salt water, and some are bleached for cosmetic appeal.  Even a seemingly small, fist sized Kalymnian sponge can hold more than liter of water!  To retrieve these organisms from the sea floor, divers would often have to dive down to depths of 40 meters.  They would carry with them an extremely heavy diving stone that would propel them to the sea floor where they would spear the sponges with spears that looked like three dimensional pitch-forks.  These divers were super bad ass, and looked exactly like the Spartan men from the movie “300”.  I know this for ironclad fact.  So, basically, they would jump off their ship with a rope attached them, maybe an oxygen line, maybe not, (depending on how bad ass they were) and clutch their diving stone.  The rope was used so that the team on the boat could somehow navigate the diver towards the sponges… I don’t exactly understand how they knew where the sponges were, or how they communicated using the rope, but apparently they did.  I know that Eddie and I are not what i would call “masters” of the  “tug system”  when multi-pitch climbing… but we make it work.  Im sure these guys were a bit more versed in their rope communicado.   Yeah so, these divers had a short window of time for them to locate and spear their prey before they had to return to the surface.  If the diver returned bleeding out of the ears, nose, and eyes, it was considered to be a “good omen”.  These divers were typically aged 20-30, and usually didn’t live past 40.  What a wild life.  So yeah, there was other stuff at the museum too, but it really paled in comparison to the rawness of all the diving suits, boats, spears, and diving stones.  One article said that a typical sponge fishing team would make about 400 Pounds during one season of fishing, which would start in august, and last for 3 months.  I guess that was a lot?  Im not sure what year that factoid was from.  Oh, and the coolest thing about this museum, was that you could touch everything.  Suits, masks, stones, and the sponges.  Totally cool.  I picked up a sponge that was larger than me… and really hoped that i didn’t break it.

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The other museum we visited was more typical of museum style, where there were all the artifacts were in glass cases, and the statues had ropes quarantine-ing them from the public.  We saw lots of pottery, coins, fishhooks , carvings, and statues.  Overall, it was less memorable than the cultural museum.  I actually got in trouble for “standing too close to the glass case”.

In the days leading up to today, we have been entertaining ourselves with more monster limestone tufa pitches, and getting ourselves hyper-pumped.  Its quite great.  Eddie had a heartbreaker whipper on his 2nd go attempt on the Grand-daddy rig in the Grande Grotta cave called “Fun de Chichunne”.  We don’t know what it means literally, but the word ‘fun’ is in the title, so it has to be good.  Essentially, it is a 40 meter roof pitch through a maze of tufa tree-trunks streaming fallic-ly from the cave’s dead horizontal roof.  Sick, right?  So, im belaying, standing with my back to the first draw, and staring straight out at the limestone roof.  I hear a few ‘try-hard” noises, and then….. Plunk, Eddie drops straight down out of the forest of tufas, way out in the distance, and almost out of sight.  “NooooooOOOoooooo!”  He screams…. “Ahhhhhhhhhh, I was so close to the anchor!!”  It was heartbreaking, really. 🙂

I, on the other hand, am psyched on the Kalymnian classic, Daniboy.  It starts off with some steep tufa climbing, with a fun campus move, into some super gnarly lock-offs and cross-throughs on two-finger pockets.  There is even a mono-move.  Its kinda scary and cool all at the same time.  Its like shoving your finger into an all-natural bolt hole, and pulling to a two-finger pocket… on an overhang. Whoa!

So, besides finding euro-versions of our friends, i have also been psyched on finding this elusive ‘pirate bar’… which is apparently is a restaurant somewhere near Sikati, run by pirates.  Eddie says that its not real, and that it is just one of those things that people tell goobers, like in high school when the seniors would tell the freshmen that the swimming pool is ‘on the 4th floor’.  Too bad I have been doing my research, and I know for stone cold fact that the pirate bar is real.  We just need to follow a series of graffiti code directions to get there.   Another adventure for another evening, and one i am eagerly anticipating.

To top this post off, here are a few shots from the Sikati Cave… one of the sikkest crags here on the island.

It was like climbing the tufa version of Apollo Reed.  We made a good showing with back to back onsights.

So, apparently the cave roof just collapsed one day, and this was what was inside.  Talk about the holy grail of rock climbing in a meteor hole!!

This place wrecked me.  Climbing one pitch is equivalent to a full gym session.  I’m actually psyched to be sitting here healing my briskit and skin.  Can’t wait to share more stories with all our buddies back home.  FULLY PSYCHED!