Camping on the cliffs

Driving in Sunday afternoon

Lovely spot to pitch a tent!

So a week ago Sunday we left home at 4:30 am as dawn was breaking in an attempt to avoid the hottest weather for driving south to Crimea---remember we have no A/C in the Lada, and open windows with blast furnace air coming in really feel hot! We were surprised to see a car in the drive-thru at McDonalds on our way through Zaporosia a half hour later, and got a couple of Mc Muffins and some coffee for Garry.

The drive went well, and it only took about 6 hours to get to where we going. We walked the shore walk in the town we have stayed  in before called Cheramorstkea and got some lunch, before heading out to where Garry wanted to camp on the cliffs. We ended up at a spot with a number of tents pitched and some vendors that seemed to be there to catch the marshutka and bus tour trade during the day. There was even some "portapotties" you could pay to use during the day- at night the guy in the car that collected two grivna locked the doors and went home, so the campers went for strolls out across the road, there seemed to be some old stone wall remnants of perhaps an old fort.



 We put  the tent up, inflated the new air mattress, and Garry went swimming a couple times in the afternoon. I turned down coming to check out the tunnel under the cliff he swam - mostly because of a precarious climb down and his description of jellyfish he swam through. He was excited about it, there was a hole near the cliff that made a chimney up to  the sky  he found when he swam through the tunnel. He was planning to take me through it on Monday with the blow up raft.

 We had tomato sandwiches for  dinner and went to bed long before the nearby campers, who were enjoying campfires as dusk fell... as we were settling in there were a few raindrops, and I thought it would be nice if it settled the dust as the wind had made some dustdevils along the campground while I was reading when Garry was swimming.

Garry went to sleep quickly, I did not...and noticed some flashes of light and thunder rumbling in the distance. Thunderstorm number one rolled thorough off the Black Sea, rain hit the tent and rolled off, I don't think Garry even heard it. I poked him awake when thunderstorm number two came over, since I got a few cold drops of rain on my toes and face where they came through the nylon. I was thinking a more expensive tent with a bigger fly would have been a better choice for camping (we bought this tent two years ago when we sent Maxim to church camp) but it wasn't bad and I finally fell asleep, after moving my purse from the bottom of the tent to next to me on top of one of the inflatable pillows (Garry had brought real pillows.)


I woke up to discover thunderstorm number three had arrived, and it was the big one! The side of the tent was collapsing over me, laying right on top of me, in fact. The wind was howling, the rain was coming down in sheets, I pulled my purse closer from under the tent side and rolled closer to Garry. I think the storm woke him also, but maybe I did... and the fact that the air mattress was shrinking as the water accumulated in the bottom of the tent kept him awake. Finally we decided to grab everything we could carry in case the tent blew away (it seemed a real possibility with the wind lifting it off the ground even with the weight of the two of us inside) and run for the car. We switched on the battery powered light, fished the valuables out of the three inches of water, grabbed clothes, pillows and blankets and unzipped the front of the tent. Garry went first to unlock the car and came back for me. I ran through the pouring rain with my purse slung around my neck and hands full of all I could carry. He zipped the tent shut as the rain continued to pour down and we  left the tent and air mattress to their fate.

Since we were wet and cold from our ten foot run in the rain-- not to mention the water that had moved from our toes to our knees before we got up off the airmattress and made the run for it---Garry turned the car on and ran the heater for 15 minutes to warm up. As we looked around, it seemed that most campers had already moved to their cars. Garry decided we had stayed in the tent for the worst of the storm, although it was rather uncomfortable sleeping in the car for the rest of the night- it was only one am when we got in! Another big storm rolled through before dawn broke, and people struggled out of their vehicles to either pack up or dry stuff out and then pack up. Only one couple stayed in their tent all night as far as we could tell, and they had a motorcycle, so no car to climb into! Luckily they seemed to have the best tent on the site.

Look it was still there in the morning!

Wind blowing the tent before the extra lines went on

Other campers drying out their stuff in the morning

We hung everything out to dry, tying the sheets to the roof rack of the Lada, tucking one of the blankets, under the wipers as it dried on the hood. The wind was still blowing hard, so we had to stick a couple rocks on top of the air mattress to keep it in place by the tent. I cooked a big lunch on the little charcoal grill. Everything was dry by afternoon, Garry re-inflated the mattress, it turned out the plug wasn't turned completely shut the night before.

There was one problem however, the car battery was dead in the morning, later we realized Garry must have hit the radio power button with his knee during the night - the volume was turned down....and so we tried to push start it, the Lada is light, but it didn't start in several tries while I pushed it a couple hundred feet. I sat down back at the campsite, while Garry tried Plan B, he got some guys to push it for him and when it didn't start he switched from 2nd to 1st gear to pop the clutch. He let it run for a while to charge the battery up.

 It turned out that neither of us went swimming with the big waves crashing on the rocks all day, but we bought bowls of soup from the vendors for dinner and got a great night's sleep. We had added extra ties and stakes to the tent sides since the wind was still blowing pretty hard.

there is a  monument  for the CCCP 1966 diving team training

Unfortunately, the sky looked really threatening when we got up, like it was going to rain. Garry wanted to jump into the spot where all the people from the buses where going the day before so we hiked down and I took pictures. He met a guy from Russia who spoke English well,and found out some info about the site. Garry told me the water was still cold from the storms, but he climbed up and jumped in a couple times. 

the low dive

getting ready to jump in from the high side

Talking with the guy from Russia

one more time

Then we hurried back and packed up camp as a few raindrops were falling and drove away. The road out was muddy. It turned out it rained harder closer the village that morning, so we spun around a bit but got back to the paved road and headed to different part of Crimea.

on our way!