Scapa Flow & Wick
21 May 2011
Just back from a stunning week's diving up north. Shake down dives on Day 1 in Scapa Flow on the German WWI battleship Markgraf and a penetration dive on the light cruiser Dresden swimming in through a doorway under the superimposed aft turret and going right through the officer's accommodation deckhouse. Evening crossing of Pentland Firth to tie up overnight at Wick.
Next day saw us diving a large WWII steamer 15 miles off the land in 50 metres. Lovely 10-15 metre ambient visibility on the bottom and a general cargo of bottles, crockery, wire bales and concrete. The dive team loved the wreck so much we went back the next day to complete our survey.
After that we ran back across the Firth to Scapa Flow ahead of an imminent big SW blow. The following day saw us carrying out a survey dive on the boom defence vessel HMT Strathgarry. Last day's diving was a bit of a self imposed mission to link the 2 15-inch stern turrets of the Bayern to the forward turrets. The massive Bayern had lain upside down on the bottom after the scuttling in 1919. During salvage operations in the 1930's her sealed hull was overfilled with air and she became buoyant and rise to the surface before her gun turrets had been secured for lifting. They remained on the bottom and are now 80-100 metres apart. We managed to fix a rope to the east set of turrets and navigate along the scour in the seabed left from the now departed hull to find the west turrets. Job done - both sets of turrets can now be dived in the one dive.
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