Unchained!

Excited because I've finally put up my first route! It's been quite a process, starting around September last year, when I first saw photos of this block and tagged it as a possible climbing place. I wanted to my first route to be an easy line that wouldn't be too hard to bolt. Upon close inspection this line turned out to be just that. The top of the block turned out to be accesible by a scramble with a crux of about french 3 / yds 5.4 close to the ground. It turned out there were plenty of opportunities for temporary anchors. The line had horribly rusted bolts, so there was some de-bolting to do as well, but a big hammer helped :-) after that, tapping, marking, drilling, cleaning, cleaning again, cleaning yet another time... gluing in bolts and then, finally, bounce testing them.

The block stands in the sea, near Fort Beekenburg. It has big chain around it that was used to close off the harbour in World War 2. This is where it is in Google Maps:  https://www.google.nl/maps/@12.0714745,-68.8611904,69m/data=!3m1!1e3

Route name: Unchained
Location: roadside wall, right side; following a line of white rock
Grade: french 4 / yds 5.6
Protection: 2 bolts + 1 double bolt anchor (glued-in titanium)
Length: about 6 meters (I guess)
Style: the route is meant to be lead. It will be hard to clip the anchor from above. The central ring of the anchor may be used directly for top-roping.

Other possibilities nearby:

Route name: Chained
Location: on the left sea facing side of the block; starting just left of the corner with the roadside; further up, follow the easy ground to the left until you are at the summit
Grade: french 3 / yds 5.4 (first few meters)
Protection: none, but the first meters can be protected with a small friend and a big nut... higher up, it's just better not to fall...
Length: about 8 meters
Style: easy trad (in the upper part watch out for the sharpness of the rock - also when building an anchor to bring others up) or solo scramble

Route name: unnamed project 1
Location: just to the right of the left edge of the roadside wall
Grade: probably french 5b / yds 5.9
Protection: nothing yet
Length: about 8 meters
Style: TBD

Route name: unnamed project 2
Location: on the roadside wall, the steep wall between project 1 and "Unchained"
Grade: probably harder than french 6a / yds 5.10a
Protection: nothing yet, but if "Chained" is climbed to the top, there is a massive feature that can be threaded above this route for a natural toprope anchor, using a piece of static rope or a very long sling.
Length: about 8 meters
Style: toprope (for now)

MASHA DANKI for supporting me and making this possible: Liesbeth Kroone, Kobe Bellinx, Martin of Titan Climbing, Harald Swen, Terence Ching of Stichting Uniek Curacao, Joop van der Leede, Elvira van Veghel, Sergio Ramos, Wilmer David Juarez, Ingmar Schnitzler, Imma Curiel and Andy (special mention as he belayed me through the bounce testing)

Salud to new beginnings!