Scapa Flow, my first trip.

[Okeanos]

Leaving glorious sunny Cornwall on Friday 15th september with a couple of mates for the long drive to Scrabster I wondered what the week would bring, in both diving and weather. 800 and something miles later, changing drivers on route, we were there. In time for a breakfast in the fishermans mission, already inside was Pheonix, Padowan and Mark Powell.

I had read somewhere that if you arrive early you can leave your car on the quay all week F.O.C., thats not what I was told when I got there. So after breakfast I paid for the car to come too.

I slept for most of the ferry crossing and was at Stromness in a jiffy. We parked the car on the quay to unload and started moving everyones kit onto Bob's boat, the Halton. We were going to be staying on the liveaboard Halton for the week so didn't really need the car but it was easier for transporting the kit.

We quickly got to know where everything was, including the pubs, chip shop and doughnut shop. The boat is quite well fitted out, there is a big oil fired Rayburn which produces plenty of heat and is the cooker. Air, nitrox and trimix was all available, although we didn't need the Helium as we were doing the German boats, so Hazel nicked a 'J' of it for Mark Powells group on Stormdrift.

Dive sites were up to us, we wanted to do the remains of the German high sea fleet, weather permitting, so -

The first dive of day one was the Koln, a 5000 ton light cruiser in 35m of water laying on its side. It would be hard for me to describe what diving any one of these wrecks for the first time would be like, AWESOME comes to mind. Mostly complete, the main damage came from some early salvaging. Big guns still in place, it looked ship shaped, the vis was good at around 20m, we did some penetration but stayed mainly on the outside, loads of stuff to see. What can I say, Awesome, I said it again.

Second dive was the Tabarka, one of the block ships. An easy wreck penetration, swam the length and back inside, loads of nudibranchs. Very enjoyable, not as impressive as the earlier dive but still very good. The location in Burra sound meant we would be getting some current towards the end of the dives and we did, there is some strange turbulence outside. I sent the DSMB up, it went the opposite way from the current, I went up, managed to do my stops, then after reaching the surface went the opposite direction.

Day two, another cruiser, the Brummer, similar to the Koln, slightly more damage, similar vis and on its side too. There was a seal feeding, I kept seeing it swim past at around 30m chasing the thousands of fish. Another great dive, I could get used to this. Second dive of day two was another block ship, this time the Doyle, the keel lies intact full length down to the prop. The rest of the wreck is quite broken, there is a long swim through inside down the keel which was fun. There was quite a few people swimming around outside, I never saw anyone else inside.

Day three. The wind had picked up, it was blowing a force 6 or 7, some boats turned back or never went out. Bob was loving the conditions and as it's a big boat it was taking the conditions quite well. We ended up diving the F2, the bows were intact, the rest looked more like the wrecks I am used to in the shallows in Cornwall, quite broken. Once again there was a lot of shoals of small fish, I saw a bird swimming underwater this time after its breakfast. Close to the F2 is a salvage barge, this was fairly intact, guns from the F2 were inside it. Good fun swimming around rummaging about, small, but fun. A couple of Cod were spotted near the bow.

Day four, Kronprinz Wilhelm, a little deeper at close to 40m. This is a huge ship, 25,000 tons and upside down. There is no way to see this wreck on a single dive, we just went to the bottom, saw some massive guns the biggest was 12", the barrel was over 1m diameter at the bottom!! Once again some damage from early salvage attempts but otherwise intact, the hull is apparently 12" thick in places. D4 dive 2, Dresden, another cruiser, enjoyable, the vis had been affected by yesterdays winds, but very good none the less.

D5 dive 1, The first time we dived something that wasn't German, we dived the James Barrie. A 666 ton trawler, again on its side, mostly complete, good vis until two more boats turned up and joined us. 43m to the bottom it was the deepest so far, it would have been a lot nicer with less people, but another cracking dive. Dive 2 was the Karlsruhe, another cruiser, shallower than the rest, more broken than the rest but still very enjoyable, I may have even enjoyed it more than the other cruisers.

D6 dive 1, the Markgraf another 25,000 ton battleship. Slightly deeper than the Kronprinz, upside down again, another ship that would probably take a week of dives to get to know. D6D2, back on the Brummer by popular demand. A great dive to finish off the week.

This may be boring to those who have dived the German fleet before, but I hadn't. It was all excellent diving, the ships are very impressive. The whole week was very enjoyable. Bob is a character. Halton is a comfortable and very capable boat.

I will be returning to Orkney and Scapa flow, and I will be booking on the Halton. It's nice to be able to have an extra few minutes in bed with a 300hp wake up alarm every morning.

If you haven't dive the flow before get up there and do it.

[lloydwatkin]

Excellent, thanks for that. I'm off to Scapa mid-october on the Halton as well. Going to be losing my scapa-ginity myself

Lloyd

[triplefin]

You will have a brilliant time, here are a few pics taken from last week.
Bob is a first class skipper with a great sense of humour. He also has a deepstop blog which you might like to check out, Halton Ocean he often writes about the punters!

[warmwaterdiver]

is Sharky testing the air?

[Ding Dang Doo]

Excellent report, thanks for that...

keep thinking I'd like to do the Flow... just..well, I don't know, difficult?

I'm sure you'll all tell me otherwise...

Pete

[triplefin]

Originally Posted by Ding Dang Doo

Excellent report, thanks for that...

keep thinking I'd like to do the Flow... just..well, I don't know, difficult?

I'm sure you'll all tell me otherwise...

Pete

No its not difficult.

Scapa tends to conjure up a vision of deep technical diving that some divers like to maintain as it gives them a macho image. However I think Stormdrifts virgins trip this year certainly dispensed with that as there were people on it, like myself, diving on single cylinders (+pony) and not doing deco (well just the odd minute here and there!). All the light cruisers from the german fleet are in less than 40m. They lie on the sides so you can have a good dive just pootling around the top half should you wish, round about the 20/25m mark. The battleships are deeper and upside down but a good skipper will try and work round peoples needs. So for example I couldnt do the Markgraf at 45m to the bottom, so last week on the Halton Bob dropped me on the Kronprinz then went and dropped the others off on the Markgraf .(the 2 are pretty close together)

Obviously with single cylinders and no deco your dive times are limited time wise, but as long as you have UK diving experience and use a dry suit there is no reason to discount scapa as a dive destination. Its just a question of getting on a trip/group which will suit you, but then that applies to any dive trip.

[Okeanos]

Originally Posted by warmwaterdiver

is Sharky testing the air?

Its an alcohol test meter, he's checking his breath, from a distance, to make the reading within limits.

[Brick]

Was good to meet you guys up there last week! Fin has promised a trip report for some time today - should make interesting reading... We only turned back on the Tuesday because it was too blowy to get a deep dive in and we had trimix fills... It seemed a shame to waste it on the F2!

[John Touhig]

Originally Posted by Brick

Was good to meet you guys up there last week! Fin has promised a trip report for some time today - should make interesting reading...

Hmmmm.... I wonder how much I will feature in the report... or if Fin will remember to include the reel incident...


John

[Brick]

Well, with your big red swelling that kept oozing all over your undersuit, I would imagine quite a bit! You're not suggesting that Fin lost his reel, are you? How on earth would that have happened?