Scapa Flow
24 August 2003
Trip report by Morgan Peat
First published in London Diver, October 2003
Towards the back end of August, ten members of London Branch left town for the lure of Northern Scottish diving. All our gear was tossed into the back of a rented minibus and the three drivers (Alex, Tobias's friend Iain and I) took it in turns to drive through the night. Our journey was rather eventful; indeed we were lucky to make Stromness at all.
The first incident occurred in Leeds at about 11 pm. While performing a three-point turn, the minibus stalled blowing the main engine fuse. Nothing worked - engine, hazard warning lights and headlights were all kaput. Fortunately, the nose of the minibus was pointing into the drive of someone with a movement-activated security light. While we waited for the RAC to arrive, our caffeine-fuelled fidgeting kept the light constantly lit and the poor residents, whose drive we were standing on, peering through the curtains.
Now about three hours behind schedule, we zipped through Northern England and Scotland, pausing for only a few minutes to stock up on fuel, food, duvets, school jumpers and birthday cards (I kid you not). Most people slept soundly through the night, only waking up when we passed speed cameras: "Gatsco" being spoken in dulcet tones from Jeff's GPS, sharp braking followed by heavy acceleration.
On arrival at Scrabster, we had a few minutes spare to visit John O'Groats and have our pictures taken before heading for the ferry. It was a pretty surreal experience: it turned out that Cameron from Big Brother (remember him? nor me) was returning home for the first time since winning the show. The party for him on the ferry was huge (as huge as a party in the Orkneys can get), with dancing, singing and free champagne! When the ferry arrived at Stromness, a thousands-strong welcome party was there to greet us. Well, not us exactly, but we pretended they were.
Diving started with a vengeance the next day. That consisted of a morning dive to a fairly deep wreck lying on its port side, broken away midships. Lunch was taken on the island of Hoy with a trip around the war museum. The afternoon dive was a little bit shallower to a wreck lying on its port side, broken away midships. This was repeated for six days. The dives got progressively deeper, the ships got progressively larger, the holes amidships got progressively wider.
The war museum was interesting for the first few days, after which we started to find alternative lunchtime entertainment. We went to see a military graveyard one day; slept through (sorry, watched) a film about The Orkneys another day; listened to Jeff moaning about walking long distances (1 mile); I got told off for climbing 80-year-old gun emplacements and Tobias filmed cow porn.
Unfortunately for us, a couple of things conspired to make the diving not as great as it could have been. Most trips to The Flow tend to dive a deep battleship or cruiser in the morning followed by a blockship in the afternoon. The blockships are relatively shallow boats sunk to block the entrance to Scapa Flow, intended to stop enemy U-Boats entering. Slack tide is relatively short so that while you go down on slack, you surface in a 5 knot tide. Skippers only let you dive in these currents when you will drift back into the flow—the week we were there we would have been pulled into the Atlantic, with obvious risks. Our only opportunity to dive one of these ships was in the morning, which meant no second dive (skipper's rules: second dive MUST be shallower than the first). We did this once and it was (in my opinion) one of the best dives of the week.
Tides are something I would never have thought could be a problem in Scapa Flow, but having been caught out once I will certainly check next time.
While we managed to work around tidal limitations, we could not avoid the plankton bloom. The unusually hot weather we have had this year caused the plankton to arrive earlier than usual, and we managed to catch it full-on. The expected 20 metre visibility ended up being somewhat less.
Despite all my doom-and-gloom reporting, the diving was superb. For those of us who were relatively inexperienced, the diving was both interesting and challenging. Some of the ships were so large you thought you had hit the ocean floor and it was narcosis making you see rivets holding the ocean bed together. The swim-throughs were interesting and the massive guns were fascinating as they appeared out of the murk.
After our morning's dive on the blockships, we had an afternoon off. Jeff and Chris decided to spend it in the pub, while the rest of us took a short stroll along the coast to visit Scarra Bray, a prehistoric settlement. I was leading the way, and whilst my navigation was spot-on (keep the coast on the left), my estimation of distance left a little bit to be desired. We all worked up an appetite for dinner, but I don't think Tobias has forgiven me yet…
On our final day, the diving was almost called off. The seas were so rough that Iain spent most of the trip leaning over the rail, not helped by Jeff's descriptions of his greasy fried breakfast. We managed to find a fairly sheltered cove for a scenic dive made all the more entertaining by trying to climb back up the heaving ladder afterwards.
Our last evening in Stromness coincided happily with the 10th anniversary of the Orkney beer festival. As the ferry was departing after midday the next day, we all made the most of it.
On the last day we had a morning to work off our hangovers. Some went cycling, some went on a visit to Kirkwall (and its distillery). The ferry crossing and journey back were much quieter than those out, and we again travelled through the night back to London.
On the whole, the trip was great fun. Everyone had a great time and a lot of diving experience was gained. Despite the less-than-perfect conditions, the diving was sufficiently challenging and interesting to keep us going all week. Chris and Damien (who ran the boat) were great (thanks guys), and made sure that we did the best possible dives we could. Thanks to Tobias for organising everything, too.
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