I always said I probably wouldn’t ever do the German fleet in Scapa Flow – not because I didn’t think that the diving would be good but because the 14 hour drive seemed a bit of a waste when I could get to caves in France, Florida or Mexico quicker. 

It wasn’t that I didn’t want to go - this mecca for English wreck divers always promised good diving – but I was reluctant to give up a weeks cave diving to do it. This changed when I was asked to run a trip for GUE tech 2 divers. So mid afternoon one Friday found me, Al, Andy Kerslake and John Grogan heading for Scapa where we would meet the boat, Valkyrie, and all our kit which had travelled with John Kendall and David Martin in a van.

We were hoping to get out of the flow to do some of the slightly less dived wrecks but we would have to content ourselves with the flow ships until the weather gods smiled on us. For those of us who had not been to Scapa before this was good news – whether or not the German fleet were deep or often dived was irrelevant – they were new to us. We therefore kicked off the week with the Mark Graf for our first dive.

Mark Graf
Impressive for scale but disappointing in position (the Battleship the Mark Graf lies upside down in 45 metres with penetration the only way of seeing the detail of the wreck) Al and I lined in several times, making headway into the wreck but each time finding dead ends and having often to come out – often most inelegantly and backwards. We went from bow to stern staying at the seabed level seeking reasonable access. It was a fairly dark dive which meant care had to be taken not to swim too far into the overhead without securing a line. In once corridor I managed to make a turn round a column, find a doorway which was too tight for the rebreather and, in turning back to signal to Al to back up, get the line hooked up under my stage bottle trussing me like the Christmas turkey. Well it did at least make him laugh.

Coln
After a surface interval we jumped in on the Coln – a cruiser in 36 meters. Hazel had told us about access into the wreck near the chain lockers which we duely found. I headed in followed by Al and we swam from the bow through the wreck changing level a few times until we popped out by the life boats davits. I had wanted to drop under the armoured control tower column but with no line out at the time we passed it this was not an option. Laying a line back in we headed to the tower and dropped back and under it. Sadly we were not to make much progress – the squeeze was quickly too tight to get through and Al turned back – only to snag himself on a chain hanging from the ceiling which caught his isolator quickly and firmly so he was stuck. Seeking revenge for the earlier laughs at my expense I giggled and made a few choice gestures before agreeing to release him. David and John swimming past heard giggles coming from deep inside the wreck and wondered what was going on and whether they were about to be pounced on by a stealthy rebreather diver.

Kron Prinz Willhelm,
At the beginning of day two, I quickly decided that I don’t care much for upside down wrecks. Al was happy swimming around in a quest to find the gun. I got slightly bored by this (have never really seen the attraction of guns which are simply pipes which go bang, and started picking on sea urchins but things improved when we rounded the bow and found the wreck slightly more broken and accessible.

Al didn’t find his gun – apparently it was at the stern and pretty much covered over by the decks but it was an OK dive for 45 minutes or so. Lifting off the wreck on the way to our first deco stop took us out of its shadow and the immense hull lying before us was a sight which will stay with me for a while.

The Brummer
This was an unexpected pleasure of a dive. The deck has peeled away and the wreck is beautifully accessible. We took it in turns to thread our way through it, picking through the levels, making sure of access ways, leaving the wreck and re-penetrating whenever necessary we spent a great deal of our 45 minutes bottom time inside. We took a camera and whilst clearly not up to the standard of most of our friends who take beautiful pictures it was nice to get some mementos of the dive. We passed Andy and John who had just encountered a seal on the bows of the wreck and saw John and David deep inside leaving rusticles as they made their way through tighter and tighter holes. We popped down to see what they were looking at and found more passages to investigate.

Having run without charge for four dives now, my light failed which put an end to our penetration but we carried on after Al had ever so slightly taken the mick out of the failure. Shame that whilst he was laughing at my misfortune, he initially failed to notice that his light, which had been used for the same amount of time, had also packed up. Armed with two backup lights it was time to leave the bottom and vow to go back again for more fun on this wreck another day. Large lions mane jellyfish livened up the deco slightly as did taking photographs. Many smiles back on the surface.

The Konig
Al and I took scooters on the Konig, another upside down battleship, which was in hindsight a mistake as the best bits of the wreck were definitely inside as, yet again the wreck lies upside down. My scooter was hideously buoyant so it took little persuasion to get me to drop it and line off into the wreck. Dropping the scooter in an open water environment is always a little nerve racking, and many of the swim throughs did not require line so Al suggested that we clip them off behind us and swim. This proved interesting on occasion as it was yet another piece of kit added to the two stages to drag through small gaps but it did work in a fashion.

We found a few of the deck guns which were sticking out of the side of the wreck on the sea bed. A large hole on the port side looked inviting and we headed in a short way to see whether there was a route worthy of laying line further in. The words of David Rhea who described a wreck as a cave in permanent state of collapse were ringing in my head, as was creaking from above so I hightailed it out again after a while and we moved up over the stern and up the enormous hull between where the rudders would have been. The scale of the wreck was more apparent here with the keel rising up to the 21 meter stop where we gas switched and prepared to leave on a bag.

The F2 and barge
This was a shallow dive which we opted to use open circuit gear to do. Helen the crew of the dive boat agreed to join me and Al for this dive and took her camera along to play with. Al and I relaxed on this dive and started to play. We popped in to the barge and out of a hole which Helen said was not normally considered an exit hole but it seemed OK.

The largest star fish I’ve seen for a bit was destined for Al’s head which he spotted when two large arms folded down over his mask. He threw me into the sea bed and held me down for a while – just as Helen stopped taking photos of a sea urchin and turned round to find us apparently killing each other. Somehow it seemed OK not to look fabulous as long as we were having fun. An ascent on a bag was not that smooth as we drifted into the shot line at 3 metres – much to the surprise of the divers already on it.

James Barrie
The James Barrie is a tidal wreck, unlike those in the flow, so we had to hit slack water which came a little earlier than expected. Al and I were first in and he quite quickly signalled me that he was having issues equalising and also his mask was full of water. He relatively quickly suggested that all was well again so we moved off only to stop a few metres further down with the same problems. Whilst Al equalised I checked his mask but it appeared absolutely clear with no hairs or hood stopping a seal. I suggested that he swap to his back up but he indicated that he would prefer to descend to the wreck and get sorted there. A quick look at the bottom confirmed indeed that the glass had come loose and I got his back up out and he switched to it. The viz was fantastic but as I looked at Al, peering through the fog of a back up mask, I figured I shouldn’t comment (much!)

We could see the whole wreck lying before us with two teams already on it – JAG and AK and John and David. It’s only a small trawler but this actually helped the enjoyment of the dive as the whole shape of the wreck could be seen.

We popped in through a hole in the decks and picked our way in and out. Swimming past JAG and AK Al spotted JAG’s RB bubbling and I signalled to Andy to take a look. We left them playing with bubbles as all was under control and met up with them again later on the dive. In and out, up and down, we really enjoyed this one. There were other divers on the wreck, one of whom was swimming with two head mounted lights alongside a video camera which took me rather by surprise when he appeared out of the gloom from way off the wreck. He politely asked us whether he could film us and we agreed – after we worked out what he was asking.

A flurry of movement on my left indicated that John Kendall was squeezing through a small hole – or rather trying to. His perseverance paid off as he popped through into the wreck, just as his buddy David started to look around to see where he was. The double take was amusing but a small puff of silt which came out of the hole gave John away quite quickly.

We left the wreck after 50 minutes by swimming to the stern to make sure that we were swept away from the shotline on deco rather than towards it. Deco was very cold after four days diving but apart from that uneventful which is as it should be apart from the odd jellyfish floating past. We soon surfaced to find the other teams back on the boat and that the weather had picked up slightly.

Al and I opted to sit out the Karlsruhe dive. The plan was to dive it again on the way home the next day and we as were so cold, and Al’s ears were clearly struggling to equalise, it seemed sensible to miss a dive.

HMS Strathgarry
At 58 metres this was our deepest dive of the week in the shipping lanes which are used by the oil tankers which visit the refinery. Kitting up for this dive was troublesome. Al, already suffering from sticky ears, fell down the ladder going below to get changed, gas mixes were being difficult meaning bottom stages would have to be used turning it into a 3 stage dive, bits and bobs broke and needed fixing. It was as if the gods were telling us that golf would be a nice hobby.

Suborn as we are we carried on and jumped in to be rewarded with 20 odd metres viz in blue water and almost no current on descent. We dropped down the shot line to find it hooked into the sea bed but not into the wreck. There were a large number of squat lobsters who appeared most surprised to see us (the Strathgarry is not dived that much) and one particularly large one tried to see me off several times causing me much amusement. The good viz and the proximity of the shot to the wreck meant that we swam along the bottom in about 58 metres pretty confident hat we would come across it and sure enough we did. The first clue was a large intact anchor and from that point the stern of the wreck could be seen looming up, intact with prop and rudder still in place.

It was an awesome sight – in blue clear water. We could make out John and Andy on the wreck who were taking video and we shone our lights back at the shot line to help guide John and David in (unknown to us they had kit issues on the surface and took a further 10 minutes or so to drop in).

Making our way forward, past the wheelhouse with the steering binnacle still mostly in place and intact panes of glass which had fallen from the screening, we came across the winches which were the mainstay of this first world war boom defence vessel. The bow points into the current so as we continued our move forward we saw increasing degradation of the wreck but it was still impressively intact given it’s exposed position for approaching 100 years.

This was a fantastic dive which helped restore my faith in UK wreck diving. We pottered around for just over half an hour, swimming off the wreck a little to see what the masts had dumped on the sea bed and taking in the view of the wreck lying in her final resting place. We watched John and Andy leave and then after one last circuit thumbed the dive as well. As we lifted off we could see John and David exploring the wheel house right up to and including our 30 meter stop.

Our ascent was slightly interesting. My switchblock decided to come apart at the 21 metre stop and start loosing gas. I shut down the offending regulator and switched anyway. Once we were both on the deco gas we tried to fix it. A spanner I carry for times like this was not effective but after a bit of time and a couple of stops, we managed to get it snugged down enough to gas it back up. It was never an issue of course as there is redundancy in the block but fixing it was handy as it would cover further failures. Failures not withstanding - all in all it was a great dive.

The Karlsruhe
The dive which followed was frankly not my cup of tea. There are dives when you struggle to orientate yourself and the viz, which may have been acceptable on the south coast but after the morning dive was poor, made it a dull dive for me. We found a hole to go in, only to find that John and David had beaten us to it and laid a line which put it rather out of bounds, then swam along to find another only to have them steam past! Good on them – but it rather curtailed our opportunities at the time. A large deck gun impressed Al but there was little else of interest. The final straw was my video camera flooded on the way up. Oh well – you can’t have them all.

The Dresden.
In roughly 36 metres of water the Dresden is quite intact but broken open to allow easy access. We identified a few rather long swim throughs where yet again we were competing with by Kendal and Martin wreck hogs to get in first – and often losing. We got back a couple of decks and laid line for a while, getting into some quite narrow passages. After retracing our steps I took us through a long swim through which appeared to have an exit point at the end but when we got there it was too tight. I signalled to Al to turn around then spotted a hole which was large enough for me to scrape through sideways. On the way I had to wriggle down and off to one side and when I turned around I could see Al still inside the wreck but no apparent hole where I had come through. I looked up and got a blast of sea water through my neck seal – uck. Al in the meantime moved back a little further and found a slightly larger hole which he came out of. Wet, and with enough squirreling done, I thumbed the dive.

The Brummer – a return
I intended to sit out the last dive as I was still cold from dive 1 but it was to be the Brummer which I had enjoyed a lot earlier in the week and I was keen to go back. Al said he would be happy to cut the dive time short if I was too cold so, with this generous offer and Helen’s tumble drying of my undersuit over lunch, I jumped in.

I was so glad I agreed to dive. We headed straight in to the wreck and through the multiple deck levels until we hit the sea bed on the other side of the wreck – don’t get to do that too often – but we did it again and again on this dive! It was like an exploded diagram of what a wreck should be and so beautifully accessible with a bit of overhead training and a few squeezes – but if I can get through in an RB80 with a stage it’s not that tight. We did see a small rounds hatch with a ladder which would really have only been accessible to a diver in twin 7s or small side mounts but looked very inviting but we really did get everywhere else.

We had a fantastic week which really showed UK sea diving at its best.

Thanks to all who took part in the diving – a great bunch of people who made for a stress free diving week. But thanks particularly to Hazel and Helen. Hazel is a formidable woman, Bodicea on steroids she throws the 176 tonne dive boat around on a sixpence within four feet of your head with unerring and reassuring accuracy. Helen is the cook, the divers’ friend and deck hand and team photographer too. Together they welcomed us to the boat and discussed the diving for the week.

On deck, Helen knows enough about DIR diving to be a fantastic deck hand and aims to help where needed handing off cameras, scooters and the like to divers in the water whilst Hazel holds the boat steady. They respect divers and are happy to work with the group rather than dictate how it will be done – with a watchful eye on safety as we would expect.