Scapa Flow - The Heavy Metal Tour

[Paul Oliver]

Dear Divers

OK, i am back from Scapa now and the adrenaline is starting to wear off after the 700 mile drive home, so time for a dive report. A group of 10 of us from Canterbury Divers went up to Scapa via the Farne Islands for the Heavy Metal Tour - We were not disapointed.

We had the Thurs and Fri diving the farnes off Soverign II and did the Somali (29m) and Chris Christianson (32m) along with 2 very good scenic dives with the Seals. An excellant 2 days diving.

So Scapa then, we were with Leigh and Dougie of the Diving Cellar which offers Boat, Accom, Shop and a mini-bus for a very good price. The Boat the John L is the divers best friend on a long trip - a good old tug. with a crew of Robert - a quiet but outstanding skipper and James the pirate crewman who is built like Arnie and lifts you up the ladder at the end of the dive.

The boat has air and Nitrox onboard, has a low entry and exit point and shruggs off heavy seas (more of this later).

The diving is a good progression from Dover Diving being a bit deeper and having better vis and light levels, we also had an experienced bunch on the trip with 2 Advanced Divers, 5 Dive Leaders and 3 Sport Divers which included 4 Open Water Instructors and 1 Club Instructor.

The diving then:-

Day 1 - The Cruiser Dresden in 37m - A good start with a nice shape and some swim throughs.

Torpedo Boat Destroyer V83 in 14m - a Nice second dive with good vis and some swim throughs at the stern end.

Day 2 - Cruisers Koln (36m) and Karlsruhr (27m), the Koln is now well at the top of my best dive list lots of guns, swim throughs and penetration, the Karlsruhr is very well broken but lots to look into.

Day 3 - Cruiser Brummer (35m) another cracking dive and then a scrapyard drift (22m) with lots of gun turrests, superstructure and a bagfull of scallops

Day 4 Battleship Kronprinz Wilhelm (35m) an outstanding dive, the highlight swiming for ages under her. Followed by the Destroyer F2 and barge, another cracking second dive.

Day 5 The top cruisers revisited in Gale force winds The Brummer (33m), we were 1 of only 2 boats on the fleet due to the weather, and then the Koln when we were the only boat on the fleet, many others were still in the harbour and did not dive. The John L had no problems getting us in and out.

Day 6 The Battleship MarkGraf (42m), which was awsome. Some great penetration and good vis, followed by the only blockship the Tabarka (16m) with the most incredible chances to penetrate with about 20m of crystal clear vis in her.

So at the end of that i had just under 14 hours underwater, with the longest deco hang being 45min and some awsome memories. We used a good Nitrox mix each morning with an MoD to match the bottom so 28-32% generally, then had a 40% mix for the afternoon. I only used a stage bottle (7.5L) with a 50% mix on the 2 Battleship dives with long square profiles planned on V-planner and run on the tables. The rest other deep dives we worked up as we worked along.

We had 2 easily managed incidents - A SUUNTO Mosquito packed up at 20m on the MarkGraf dive, diver used bailout tables and buddies computer (they had buddied all week and had same profiles) to complete dive, and a stage bottle first stage failed on the same dive - Diver completed deco on backgas (50% was being used for extra safety not excellerated deco).

1 x VR3 failed on the boat as well prior to the Markgraf dive.

An outstanding weeks diving with many comedy moments. Sorry i did not send out many txt's after day 2 but my phone was playing up.

Thanks to Howard for the Txt as we docked at Scrabster on the way back reminding me we had the drive from hell to go (got in at 0115) exactly 700 miles from Scrabster to Whitstable in 13 hours and 45 min.

This is a must do dive trip.

Dive Safe

Paul

[Phoenix]

Excellent report, diving Scapa is one of the few things that will get me to return to the UK.

Ian

[Dan]

Should be doing Scapa myself in October with anyluck. The only spanner in the works is getting there and back. You live down the road from me so if you can do it in less than 14hrs that a good omen for me. Thanks to work and lack of time off I might find myself having to leave Friday night and hopefully getting there for Saturday morning which is going to be pushing it some what!

[Paul Oliver]

Dan

We were in a clapped out Ford escort van but had a clear run.

Ferry don't leave till 1100, but you could get the later one no problems, i think its about 2000, docks next to the dive boats.

Good luck

Paul

[Simon TW]

Nice report Paul, I have been to Scapa when I was a novice and just did courses there. I allways wanted to get out on the scuttled fleet but only ever managed the blockships. (I had family living there and I was committed to spending time with them) Both times I was booked on boats we were blown out.

One day I will return.

[Noel Johnson]

Great report, I'm going in July next year and booked it in March, how's that for planning ahead?

Just a little excited...

[Paul Oliver]

Hi Noel

We booked up 18 months in advance so we would get good August weather, did not quite work out that way as the 2 sunny days were the 2 saturdays, so the day we arrived and left. Ho Hum thats diving though.

Enjoy your trip.

Paul

[Diving Dude]

Just to repeat my text to you

"You utter utter utter Bast**d"

My fav dive site.

If this friday's dive is still on you'll have 5 mins to talk about your trip then stop, otherwise l'll be incredibly grumpy and you might think l'm Andy P

Koln.....No 1 Scapa wreck and No 1 Dudes wreck

[Diving Dude]

Originally Posted by Paul Oliver

We booked up 18 months in advance so we would get good August weather.................

We were up there last year when the temp reached 100 deg f at Northolt, w.London, we were wearing lightweight fleeces when l spoke to "da bitch"

The skipper said "it once reached 26 deg c in Orkney, they were fainting in the streets"

[JasonP]

Originally Posted by Paul Oliver

Hi Noel

We booked up 18 months in advance so we would get good August weather, did not quite work out that way as the 2 sunny days were the 2 saturdays, so the day we arrived and left. Ho Hum thats diving though.

Yeah we went in August too. Much the same, saw the sun on the first day and the last day. Every other day was grey.

There were two writeups of our trip.

My one: Scapa Flow, June 2000

And the group one: UK.REC.SCUBA : UKRS Scapa 2000

Jason