Newbury Sub-Aqua Club Trip to Scapa Flow

6-14 September 2002

This report has been written based upon and using excerpts from a "real-time" electronic diary written by all of the club members on this trip and using photographs taken by Cathy de Lara. Names have been purposefully omitted to protect the not-so innocent!!!

Friday 6/9/2

The Newbury Sub Aqua Club trip to Scapa Flow was finally underway. Six couples (the term is used loosely) made their way from Newbury to Thurso via differing routes, many harbouring a secret desire to get there first - just to say they had. That honour was taken by Mick and Phil by a wheel-spinning 10 minutes after a journey of more than 11 hours, covering over 680 miles.

As everyone had started out so early due to excitement we arrived in Thurso with plenty of afternoon left for the must-do sightseeing trip to John O'Groats to get the first view of the Orkney Islands and Scapa Flow - and even those of us who had been there before couldn't remember actually having been able to see the Orkneys from the Mainland. The weather was glorious. And of course there were a few Kodak moments at the signpost

Friday evening was of a civilised nature in a local Chinese restaurant, which unfortunately deteriorated after several pints of 80 Shillings and some mad fools drinking Pernod and Blackcurrent. It was a very long night. Those of us who were there will remember the incomparable selection of music on the jukebox and tales of goings on at the local football pitch.

Saturday 7/9

Saturday morning breakfast provided the group with an opportunity to plan the trip to Stromness. This was done in a mostly "delicate" manner. The troops were rallied by Scapa Vereran Mick (over 200 dives there over the years) who got us all to Scrabster and the gear into a container. Then the waiting for the ferry began and people started to remember what they had been up to the night before. On the ferry NSAC lead the way getting to the bar first and ensuring that the barman had a busy trip. After a valiant attempt Anthony found he had to leave half of his first pint! En route there was a second Kodak moment as we passed the Old Man of Hoy, except by then the weather had reverted back to rain and it was all a bit hazy. The weather rallied by the time we reached Stromness and the views certainly were fantastic. We checked in to The Ferry Inn and loaded all of our diving gear onto John Thornton's MV Karin, ready for Sunday.

As we couldn't believe that this weather could hold for more than a couple of hours most of the intrepid party decided to start the trip on a healthy note and bikes were hired and we set off to look at Stone circles and a Burial Chamber. When we asked a National Heritage lady where it was safe to leave the bikes she replied, looking a little puzzled, "You can leave them where you like - this is Orkney!"

The first night meal was at the Ferry Inn and Anthony fell asleep during the meal and went to bed leaving another ½ pint, earning himself the name "Active" which had been spotted subtley stitched on his T-shirt sleeve. The food was excellent with massive portions and all ate their fill. One of our young, free and singles opened international relations with an Australian girl, but when accused of just meeting her replied "She's not new, she was on the ferry!"

Sunday 8/9

Very civilised 10 am start - and the weather was just as good as Saturday! The set up on Karin was very impressive with air/nitrox/trimix readily available. It was up to the Club where we wanted to go and we chose The Brummer, a minesteamer scuttled on 21 June 1919. She lies on her starboard side; her stern in 34-37 m and her bow in 31-34 m.

Visibility was good compared with a lot of UK diving this summer at 10m, but this is allegedly fairly average for Scapa. The sheer size of this wreck was awesome, but the highlight for most of the people who saw it, was the grey seal that checked out the divers as they started up the shot line at the end of their dive. The seal found the Inspiration especially interesting!

We went ashore at Lyness and went to the café attached to the Naval Museum for lunch. One of our party embarrassed himself by asking one of the elderly ladies serving in the café where they came from - when they answered "Here" he replied "but there's nothing here!". Well, apparently the two café ladies live there, along with 498 others. The Museum was very interesting and it was decided to return another day to have a proper look around. That afternoon we dived the Karlsruhe, a light cruiser lying on her starboard side in 24-27 m. Not quite all of us … a few too many pies took their toll on a dry-suit zip, relegating it's owner to the surface as the rest of us enjoyed better viz than the morning and a refreshing 13° water temperature. The Broken Zip and some of his friends resolved the immediate problem by hiring a suit from Scapa Scuba - a very professional (and good value at £50 for a week's drysuit hire) facility a short walk through the town. We ventured out to the Stromness Hotel on Sunday evening and again experienced exceptional food. Unfortunately all that fresh air took it's toll and another Half Pint was abandoned by Active.

Monday 9/9

Consternation at the breakfast table this morning as Pete's kipper is massive - so big that he is worried that the seals will be after him.

Another blue sky day - apparently this isn't supposed to happen in September (!) and we saw porpoises during the run out to the site, the Kronprinz Wilhelm; a battleship with her starboard decks embedded in the silt and shale of the seabed in approx 38m. The viz was not as good as Sunday and we were surprised to find an increasing current as we neared the end of the dive. One of us earned the name Capt Nark having been mesmerised by "mermaids and pretty lights". A "brilliant dive through the cavernous hull".

Lunch at Lyness again following a sunny walk to the cemetery. Reflected on the futility of war and dozed on the comfortable grass under the sun for an afternoon siesta.

The afternoon dive was the F2, an "escort boat" lying in around 16m with a salvage barge close by. A very interesting dive highlighted by so many curious fish! Some of the boys opened a book on Sun Star racing which turned into a self-righting exercise, won by the 13-legged version.

Dinner was at the Royal Oak Hotel followed by drinks at the Stromness Arms. A bit of a Hippy Haunt with a Rock Juke Box. The food was again excellent. We see a pattern emerging.

Tuesday 10/9

Today's first dive was the Koln, a light cruiser lying on her starboard side in 35m. Although the viz was only around 5m the many swim-through opportunities gave a fantastic insight to the sheer size of this ship from an amazing perspective … the inside. Again, many of us were privileged to be visited by another seal at the shot line. Lunch was a "home made" picnic affair aboard Karin as we had decided to walk up to the Italian Church between dives. This is an awesome example of the human spirit overcoming adversity. Built by Italian PoWs during WWII, the interior painting and decoration has to be seen to be believed.

Our afternoon dive was on the German submarine U116, lying in approx 30m. This submarine had the misfortune of being the last naval vessel sunk in the Scapa Flow area in the First World War. Standing up to around 3m she was not obviously recognisable as a U-boat, but it was still a fairly interesting dive.

Wednesday 11/9

First anniversary of 9/11. Remembered those who had died a year ago. Today we decided to give ourselves a rest and only dive in the morning. As the weather is still glorious we thought we should take the opportunity to explore Orkney a little. Dived the Markgraf, the deepest of our tour so far at 43m. Three of our party started their Nitrox course with John Thornton today and struck gold as far as a tour of this particular wreck was concerned: casement gun, mast, spotting tower and swim-through! Others, in their excitement, ended up on entirely the wrong side of the wreck, wondering what all the fuss was about …

Nine of us hired 2 cars and set off to discover Orkney. There were those who wanted a photo-opportunity beside the signpost at Twat (yes, really) and those who attempted to cram as many ancient sites as possible into one afternoon. The Tomb of the Eagles was meant to be a spiritual, meditational, religious place but could only be reached via a small trolley on a piece of lino …

The two cars chased each other around Orkney, ending up together in Kirkwall at an Indian restaurant. Spookily, the members of our party who had not been site-seeing turned up there almost simultaneously, together with John Thornton and his wife, so we had our last-night-dinner early. On the way back to Stromness, one car decided to stop off at the Ring of Brodgar (in the pitch black at 11.30 pm!) which proved to be an excellent move as we could see the Northern Lights and the Milky Way. (The other car deposited it's passengers back at the Ferry Inn, just in time for a rendition of "Duelling Banjos" by a local band.)

Thursday 12/9

Our first dive was on the Dresden, another light cruiser which sank on 21 June 1919. She now lies in 34m resting on her port side. We had viz of just over 5m. The bow was impressive with an anchor chain running out of the hause-pipe and across the sea bed. This was one of the dives that was filmed by our Videographer - ending with some bizarre footage of some sort of sea bird swimming nonchalantly round at 6m!

We went back to Stromness for lunch followed by our afternoon dive on the Gobernador Bories, one of the block ships. Brilliant viz - well over 10m. Although not such an interesting dive as the "classic" Scapa wrecks, I am sure all of our party will remember this dive as one of the best of their Scapa trip. Both the boiler room and engine room were accessible, and at the stern a very impressive propeller. Towards the end of the dive the current picked up considerably so we finished off with a free ride on a 2 knot drift: wheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!

Thursday evening … well, what can I say? Those of us who were there will never talk. J

Friday 13/9 (will Active see a seal?)

Oh no! It's misty! Could the weather finally have broken? We sailed off for the last time to dive the Konig, the last of the three big battleships, lying in 40m. When she was scuttled the thousands of gallons of water that poured into her altered her buoyancy and she became unstable. She had become top-heavy and hit the sea bed upside down. We had excellent viz and were able to get a good impression of the size of the ship. Upon surfacing we found that the sun had burned through the mist and we again had a beautiful blue-sky day. John Thornton took us off to a small rock to see some seals as Active had up to this point been the only one of our party not to have seen a seal on a wreck! He wasn't disappointed! We decided that our last dive should be the Karlsruhe. It was great. Although diving is not a competition, Sam and Hilary managed a 70 minute dive and still came up with over 100 bar! So we sailed home for the last time with a newly-established camaraderie (we all know far too much about each other) and Mr Waddington produced champagne and toasted everyone for something. The last supper was held in The Ferry Inn and marked by a Prize Giving. Mick was awarded the Unfinished Jumper. Cathy won 2 elastoplasts for not once complaining as her neck was eaten away by her neckseal over the course of the week; Active and Wingnut each received a picture of The Markgraf and Capt Nark received 2 pictures of the Karlsruhe, together with a packet of Settlers. There was The Master of the Rubber (awarded to the most deserving); Active received a token tiny seal (just in case he hadn't seen one) and a tiny Viking was presented to our Organiser as a token of our appreciation.

Thank you everyone who came to Scapa - it was a brilliant week!