As a club we had decided to go to Scapa Flow. When the idea was first mooted there was considerable excitement, but with the horsetrading of life in the end just three of us were making the trip. In addition, I'd asked around my diving buddies and found another willing participant. That made four.
Now Scapa Flow is one of the jewels in Scotland's diving crown as it is home to the scuttled WW1 German High Seas Fleet. Despite being well north (8 hours by car and ferry) of Scotland's Central Belt in Orkney it remains quite accessible for those prepared to make the trip. Beyond this I won't give you a detailed history or geography lesson there are websites for this information.
Myself, the Barrman and his Landlady had arrived off the first ferry on the Saturday morning and met the Wylie Fox at our home for the week - the MV Karin. I lucked out and got a cabin to myself.
Our first dive (a check dive) was to be one of the cruisers, the SMS Karlsruhe.
WF was my buddy for the week. She was an experienced veteran of Scapa Flow having dived it around 20 times. I'd therefore be in good hands.
We dropped down the line to around 25m and began exploring. It was a jumble of wreckage suitably described as the "most broken up of the wrecks". We plodded around for 45 minutes before making our way to the surface. We took around 8-10 minutes to surface then headed back to port to get the divers who were coming late in the day. It was a decent enough check dive and allowed me to iron out a few kit wrinkles.
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| Kit wrinkles |
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