Saturday and we were all up pretty early and raring to go and finish our 700 mile journey to catch the ferry from Scrabster to Stromness. The further north we travelled the more remote our surroundings got until the only sign of civilisation was the road we were on and the occasional isolated house. We arrived in Scrabster in plenty of time so went for a wander around and soon realised that World Cup fever had reached Scotland even though they hadn’t managed to qualify. You could buy the full range of team shirts of those countries that had made it to the tournament, well almost all the teams. Strangely enough there didn’t seem to be any England shirts available, maybe they’d already been snapped up by the Scots to support their neighbouring country, yeah right! The Scots would rather support a team of monkeys (oh! They already do) than support England. Anyway it was time to board the ferry and settle down to watch England beat Denmark. The final whistle went just before the ferry docked in Stromness.
On our arrival we were met by Dougie from the Diving Cellar who we’d
booked our week’s diving and accommodation with. Dougie showed us the “John
L” a converted tug we’d be diving from for the week. We stowed our dive gear
and then we were taken by mini bus to the 2 adjoining houses we’d call home
for the next week. Just before he left us to settle in Dougie said the mini bus
was also ours for the week but not to lock it and to leave the keys in it in
case the traffic warden asks him to move it. He also told us not to bother
locking the front doors to the houses as nobody else bothered doing it, so
straight away we had a bit of a culture shock.Our first day of diving and an 8-30am start, the first dive was to 33metre onto a fairly intact 5600 ton 155metre long light cruiser called the “Coln”. The visibility wasn’t as good as I’d hoped for but you only really needed to use a torch when entering holes and the wreck was still recognisable as a sunken ship as opposed to a pile of scrap metal we sometimes get to dive upon off the south coast. So not bad for our first dive in Scapa, in fact BLISS! On exiting the water and starting to climb the “John L’s” ladder “James” the deck hand, a
strapping Scottish lad would descend halfway down the ladder
grab your pillar valve and with the expression “I’ve got you”,
physically haul you up which practically left your legs dangling in
mid-air. The girls on the trip “Sue Rountree” and “Sue Letley” were so
impressed by this that they changed to 15 litre tanks for rest of the week,
which I’m sure must have pleased “James” as this gave him more opportunity
to flex his pecs. The weeks diving proceeded with us doing 2 dives a day on
wrecks that ranged from the 26000 ton battleship “Kronprinz Wilhelm” in 39
metres to the smaller but no less interesting Burra Sound blockships such as the
2300 ton “Gobernador Bories” in 18 metres.
clothes
drying in the wind. Our plan was to carefully exit whilst keeping a firm grip on
the wreck, I would then hold the wreck and Nev whilst he deployed his SMB which
he managed even though it did go sideways in the current. All the while this was
going on our masks were flooding due to our uncontrollable laughter. We let go
of the wreck and almost immediately found ourselves at 2 metres having made a
Polaris ascent due to the current, it was like making an ascent in a washing
machine on spin cycle, so much for BSAC guidelines of 10 metres per minute
ascent rate.Although our main reason for going to the Orkney’s was diving, one afternoon when we’d finished diving we all piled into the mini bus to go for a drive. Gerry D suggested we head for the Lord Kitchener memorial, that’s positioned on a headland overlooking the area where “HMS Hampshire” sank taking “Kitchener” to his grave and judging by “G’s” directions it appeared he knew how to get there. He pointed to a structure at the tip of a headland and declared “there it is”. We parked the mini bus and started walking towards the structure, as we got closer the structure started to look remarkably like a small lighthouse. Eventually we asked a local for directions and she pointed to a very distant headland with another structure on it and declared “there it is”. So close and yet so far Gerry, perhaps you directed us to the Kitchener memorial lighthouse ha! ha! ha!
Friday 21 June, the last day of our holiday had arrived and after
watching England get beaten by Brazil and crash out of the World Cup we headed
for the “John L” to go for our last day of diving in Scapa Flow. We’d
decided to dive on the “SMS Coln” again, which was quite a poignant choice
as it was almost to the hour that 83 years previously the German High Seas Fleet
had been scuttled. our week of diving had come to an end and the deck of the
“John L” was a hive of activity as we tried to dry our kit before packing it
away. Back at Stromness harbour Dougie was waiting for us with a container the
size of a garden shed into which we loaded our kit and then left the container
unlocked overnight on the harbourside, can you even imagine doing that down
south !Our last night in the Orkneys was spent first eating and then drinking. We got chatting to some local girls,anyway these girls seemed to be well on their way to spending the night speaking to God on the great white telephone and calling to “ralph” and “huey” but they only appeared to be drinking milk. Eventually they revealed that their drink was in fact the local rocket fuel, a combination of milk, tia maria and vodka! just the thought of it makes me feel ill. Apparently you can get completely hammered and never get a hangover, geez, talk about a bunch of headbangers!The week’s holiday was over all too quickly and we only had the return journey left to endure (2 hour ferry crossing and a 700 mile drive). I’d recommend diving at Scapa Flow to anyone and I know I’ll be going back one day, although perhaps next time I’ll think about flying.
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Scapa Flow 2002 - Martin Paterson,
Tales from Scapa Flow - Sue Rountree
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