Review of 2007
Posted: Wednesday, 26 December 2007 |
The year started with me working on the farm, assisting many small woolly things into the world and being introduced to many new and occasionally rather slimy aspects of animal husbandry. There is something satisfying about seeing a pen full of small black lambs and knowing that some of them are there because you helped. Many nights were spent pacing the central corridor of the shed, the gentle breathing of the ewes and the blue green reflection of their eyes in your torch beam. Walking along through the loose straw a new sound caught my ear, something you wouldn't really expect to hear. One of the sheep was purring. Now I know I don't know a lot about sheep, but I’m pretty sure they don't purr. Peering over into the pen the noise gets louder, only for me to realise that the entire farm crop of cats are all unconscious in one of the hay racks in the pen – someone is obviously dreaming of something nice and has their feline engine running. Oh dear.
Brodgar
Small sheep in dog basket next to radiator.
One of the farm cats (Willow)
My broken arm....(i fell off a sheep hurdle at 4am)
My christmas present last year from a very special person (its a monofin used for freediving)
At the end of January Hazel heads off to Fraserburgh with the new boat to get it surveyed and painted in our new colours. After 10 days I fly down to go to join her and help bring it back to Orkney. Flying this short journey is great fun, and as the tiny plane soars over Scapa Flow and the southern isles I see places just crying out to be explored. The return journey doesn't really go to plan as we take on more water than we thought, which turned out to be an unforeseen problem with the caulking – best to find this out now than later. A few more days on the slip and several bales of caulk and we are ready to go again. This time Andy Cuthbertson joins us and we settle down to a long night heading north. Beatrice Oil Platform glints in the black like its own private constellation and the far distant lighthouses blink their identity to all at sea. The Pentland Firth is far less scary than i thought, although it was done at night so I do wonder if I could have seen what i would have thought! Passing the Nevi Skerry we are on home turf, and suddenly Andy and Hazel feel the weight of the previous hours passage on their shoulders. I take the wheel for the first time and pass through the flow towards the lights of home – Stromness.
Valkyrie up on the cradle at Fraserburgh.
The Stormdrift on the cradle at St Margrets Hope.
A cabin on the new boat.
Arriving back in Orkney and suddenly it is all very real. The boat is ours, the enormity of the task ahead of us seems daunting. The Stormdrift (the old boat) seemed so small and simple in comparison to this huge monster sat before us. Gradually we change all the things we wanted to change, the boat slowly becoming ours. We repair the deck where her winches wore the planks down, and most importantly added a diverlift. A lot of dive boats use a ladder to get divers back onto the boat, however we decided to try with a lift which presented us with many problems, the main one being no-one had done this before to an ex-trawler. All boats with lifts were flat transomed vessels. After much faffing with the design, a final one became reality and we used it for the first time in early April.
Repairs to the deck.
The birth of the diverlift.
Our stand at the London Dive Show
The start of the dive season was a steep learning curve for both of us. Learning what the boat did in different sea conditions, the best way to bring her alongside a pier in various wind and current conditions and how all her various systems work. My cooking ability went from a little bit haphazard to being able to put together a two course meal for 14 people in under 2 hours. No mean feat in a galley with a normal single oven cooker, a microwave and a space around 8ft by 8ft.
Hazel at the wheel
Out for a trip down the flow
The side scan sonar unit we used.
Shetland was a challenge to us. Somewhere i had longed to visit but as it drew closer the gap between north Ronaldsay and fair isle and then Sumburgh head seemed to grow. By the time it was upon us, it felt like we were about to venture halfway across the globe to reach our destination. A long swell from the East cast doubt in our minds as to whether we would be able to get to the Shetlands, however, we felt that it would be tolerable for the passengers to make it. Sailing through the gap between Auskerry and Stronsay it becomes real once again – we are heading for Shetland, Kirkwall and Orkney are soon left behind and we slip by Fair Isle in the early evening. Sumburgh head becomes a dark shape on the horizon and finally i take my final watch of the passage to the Lerwick harbour limits where I wake Hazel and we tie up in Lerwick at 3am.
The week is spent exploring the area to the south of the Harbour – Lerwick Harbour is HUGE, and is not characterised by a harbour wall as such. It is formed by Bressay and Mainland Shetland, the sheltered walls of the islands allowing safe anchorage, or not so safe as the many wrecks in the area are testament to. The easterly swell carries on throughout the week, with the winds peaking at around a force 7, more or less pinning us to Lerwick.
Our journey back is highlighted by a pod of dolphins joining us for over an hour, pity it was at 6.30am! This didn't stop anyone from getting up to see them however, and soon 10 people were stood at the bow armed with cameras. I got the feeling of who was watching who?
Team Shetland
The boat in Lerwick Harbour
An urchin on the Lunokhods 1
Dolphins near Fair Isle
Our next adventure was our northern isles trip where the weather once again put a damper on things. Just to confirm it was summer, the Orcadian weather supplied a wonderful severe gale 9 on the Sunday of the week, confining us to port for 24 hours. After this we head out and try to dive as many of the local wrecks as we can, with anything that can go wrong, going wrong! One wreck we had planned had to be aborted as a cruise liner was due to pass over the site right on slack water! Bloody inconvenient! Another was the previous day we had dived the same wreck with plenty of slack, the next day it didn't go slack at all. Don't you just love tides?
Hazel checking our propeller
Lots of fishies
Me about to jump off the roof.
Stronsay
Stronsay Sunset
A trip to Stronsay overnight seemed to settle the karma of everything, and a couple of really nice dives were had up there, followed by an evening in the local pub. A final dive on the Cotavia, a WWII casualty where the visibility was incredible and there were lobsters like a single decker bus with claws (apparently).
Oh deary me - what happens when you let me loose with a slice of melon.....
The summer also brought us our first major incident. A French diver had run out of gas and made a rapid ascent to the surface where she was unable to make herself buoyant and therefore began to drown. Many idle hours had been spent in the wheelhouse the previous season chatting over what we would do if and when this kind of thing happened to us. This was how i found myself stood on the tyre hanging over the side of the boat above the 12 degree water. It all turned out well in the end, and i was glad of my many years spent as a watersports instructor making me used to jumping into cold water.
I also did my trimix course over the summer with Mark Powell. Trimix allows you to dive deeper than you could with other gasses such as air or nitrox as below certain depths the amount of nitrogen becomes dangerous, as does the amount of oxygen. Nitrogen makes you feel drunk, and oxygen can cause you to have a seizure if too higher concentration of it is breathed too deep. Replacing some of the nitrogen and oxygen with helium allows us to dive deeper much more safely. However, it is considered by many to be a technical course and because of this I almost dreaded the course beginning. Mark is an excellent instructor, but i was very nervous despite this. Over the period Mark was with us we did lots of dives together, including one where I worked with line (string to everyone else) and without a mask to simulate zero visibility. At one point i had no mask, no regulator (the thing you breathe from) and had to swim 10m. Mark commented that he had never seen anyone do the swim quite as slowly as I did. I passed the course, allowing me to dive to 60m (200ft).
A visit to the final resting place of the Irene. A tragic story indeed.
The end of the season seemed to arrive so quickly, suddenly that was it, the end of the groups and we both flopped. Several months with no days off, being on call 24/7 for all problems be it problems with the boat or our guests had taken its toll. A week was spent doing very very little.
Hazel visited the Faeroe Islands in preparation for our 2009 expedition and Hera the new puppy was bought back from Southern England by Carolyn.
A Faroese Lighthouse
A Typical Faroes scene
Arty shot of the buoys on the farm wall.
Finally I got a chance to go back south and visit my parents, but also by popular demand to go to London and pick up an award from the British Sub Aqua Club at their annual diving officers conference. I then spent five days in Oxford with a very good friend, before leaving to make my way back north to my parents house for a further five days.
Hera the Leonberger (aka small wooly dog, fuzzball, oi)
Now lambing has begun, and the paranoia of last lambing season is back in full force. The looking at a ewe and trying to decide if she is looking sheepish, even for a sheep. They like to be alone when they give birth, hence they keep their back legs crossed while you are around.
Small wooly thing
Lambing kit
Giles always ready to help...as long as that involves getting a cuddle and eating something.
First winter storm of 2007
In less than a week I will be 28 years old and the world will rumble its way into 2008. I hope that it brings many more challenges for us to overcome and that all our diving groups go without a hitch (wishful thinking!).
An Autumn Stromness Sunrise
We are chartered to visit the northern isles of Orkney for three weeks, and Shetland for four, so if anyone from IB (or anywhere else for that matter) wishes to come aboard for a cuppa, please just let me know! We may also call into Fair Isle on the way past, as it is somewhere I have always wanted to visit.
So that's it really. 2007 has been a mad year, a year when plans became reality, when we were tested to the limit and passed.
Be happy and safe in 2008.
Brodgar
Small sheep in dog basket next to radiator.
One of the farm cats (Willow)
My broken arm....(i fell off a sheep hurdle at 4am)
My christmas present last year from a very special person (its a monofin used for freediving)
At the end of January Hazel heads off to Fraserburgh with the new boat to get it surveyed and painted in our new colours. After 10 days I fly down to go to join her and help bring it back to Orkney. Flying this short journey is great fun, and as the tiny plane soars over Scapa Flow and the southern isles I see places just crying out to be explored. The return journey doesn't really go to plan as we take on more water than we thought, which turned out to be an unforeseen problem with the caulking – best to find this out now than later. A few more days on the slip and several bales of caulk and we are ready to go again. This time Andy Cuthbertson joins us and we settle down to a long night heading north. Beatrice Oil Platform glints in the black like its own private constellation and the far distant lighthouses blink their identity to all at sea. The Pentland Firth is far less scary than i thought, although it was done at night so I do wonder if I could have seen what i would have thought! Passing the Nevi Skerry we are on home turf, and suddenly Andy and Hazel feel the weight of the previous hours passage on their shoulders. I take the wheel for the first time and pass through the flow towards the lights of home – Stromness.
Valkyrie up on the cradle at Fraserburgh.
The Stormdrift on the cradle at St Margrets Hope.
A cabin on the new boat.
Arriving back in Orkney and suddenly it is all very real. The boat is ours, the enormity of the task ahead of us seems daunting. The Stormdrift (the old boat) seemed so small and simple in comparison to this huge monster sat before us. Gradually we change all the things we wanted to change, the boat slowly becoming ours. We repair the deck where her winches wore the planks down, and most importantly added a diverlift. A lot of dive boats use a ladder to get divers back onto the boat, however we decided to try with a lift which presented us with many problems, the main one being no-one had done this before to an ex-trawler. All boats with lifts were flat transomed vessels. After much faffing with the design, a final one became reality and we used it for the first time in early April.
Repairs to the deck.
The birth of the diverlift.
Our stand at the London Dive Show
The start of the dive season was a steep learning curve for both of us. Learning what the boat did in different sea conditions, the best way to bring her alongside a pier in various wind and current conditions and how all her various systems work. My cooking ability went from a little bit haphazard to being able to put together a two course meal for 14 people in under 2 hours. No mean feat in a galley with a normal single oven cooker, a microwave and a space around 8ft by 8ft.
Hazel at the wheel
Out for a trip down the flow
The side scan sonar unit we used.
Shetland was a challenge to us. Somewhere i had longed to visit but as it drew closer the gap between north Ronaldsay and fair isle and then Sumburgh head seemed to grow. By the time it was upon us, it felt like we were about to venture halfway across the globe to reach our destination. A long swell from the East cast doubt in our minds as to whether we would be able to get to the Shetlands, however, we felt that it would be tolerable for the passengers to make it. Sailing through the gap between Auskerry and Stronsay it becomes real once again – we are heading for Shetland, Kirkwall and Orkney are soon left behind and we slip by Fair Isle in the early evening. Sumburgh head becomes a dark shape on the horizon and finally i take my final watch of the passage to the Lerwick harbour limits where I wake Hazel and we tie up in Lerwick at 3am.
The week is spent exploring the area to the south of the Harbour – Lerwick Harbour is HUGE, and is not characterised by a harbour wall as such. It is formed by Bressay and Mainland Shetland, the sheltered walls of the islands allowing safe anchorage, or not so safe as the many wrecks in the area are testament to. The easterly swell carries on throughout the week, with the winds peaking at around a force 7, more or less pinning us to Lerwick.
Our journey back is highlighted by a pod of dolphins joining us for over an hour, pity it was at 6.30am! This didn't stop anyone from getting up to see them however, and soon 10 people were stood at the bow armed with cameras. I got the feeling of who was watching who?
Team Shetland
The boat in Lerwick Harbour
An urchin on the Lunokhods 1
Dolphins near Fair Isle
Our next adventure was our northern isles trip where the weather once again put a damper on things. Just to confirm it was summer, the Orcadian weather supplied a wonderful severe gale 9 on the Sunday of the week, confining us to port for 24 hours. After this we head out and try to dive as many of the local wrecks as we can, with anything that can go wrong, going wrong! One wreck we had planned had to be aborted as a cruise liner was due to pass over the site right on slack water! Bloody inconvenient! Another was the previous day we had dived the same wreck with plenty of slack, the next day it didn't go slack at all. Don't you just love tides?
Hazel checking our propeller
Lots of fishies
Me about to jump off the roof.
Stronsay
Stronsay Sunset
A trip to Stronsay overnight seemed to settle the karma of everything, and a couple of really nice dives were had up there, followed by an evening in the local pub. A final dive on the Cotavia, a WWII casualty where the visibility was incredible and there were lobsters like a single decker bus with claws (apparently).
Oh deary me - what happens when you let me loose with a slice of melon.....
The summer also brought us our first major incident. A French diver had run out of gas and made a rapid ascent to the surface where she was unable to make herself buoyant and therefore began to drown. Many idle hours had been spent in the wheelhouse the previous season chatting over what we would do if and when this kind of thing happened to us. This was how i found myself stood on the tyre hanging over the side of the boat above the 12 degree water. It all turned out well in the end, and i was glad of my many years spent as a watersports instructor making me used to jumping into cold water.
I also did my trimix course over the summer with Mark Powell. Trimix allows you to dive deeper than you could with other gasses such as air or nitrox as below certain depths the amount of nitrogen becomes dangerous, as does the amount of oxygen. Nitrogen makes you feel drunk, and oxygen can cause you to have a seizure if too higher concentration of it is breathed too deep. Replacing some of the nitrogen and oxygen with helium allows us to dive deeper much more safely. However, it is considered by many to be a technical course and because of this I almost dreaded the course beginning. Mark is an excellent instructor, but i was very nervous despite this. Over the period Mark was with us we did lots of dives together, including one where I worked with line (string to everyone else) and without a mask to simulate zero visibility. At one point i had no mask, no regulator (the thing you breathe from) and had to swim 10m. Mark commented that he had never seen anyone do the swim quite as slowly as I did. I passed the course, allowing me to dive to 60m (200ft).
A visit to the final resting place of the Irene. A tragic story indeed.
The end of the season seemed to arrive so quickly, suddenly that was it, the end of the groups and we both flopped. Several months with no days off, being on call 24/7 for all problems be it problems with the boat or our guests had taken its toll. A week was spent doing very very little.
Hazel visited the Faeroe Islands in preparation for our 2009 expedition and Hera the new puppy was bought back from Southern England by Carolyn.
A Faroese Lighthouse
A Typical Faroes scene
Arty shot of the buoys on the farm wall.
Finally I got a chance to go back south and visit my parents, but also by popular demand to go to London and pick up an award from the British Sub Aqua Club at their annual diving officers conference. I then spent five days in Oxford with a very good friend, before leaving to make my way back north to my parents house for a further five days.
Hera the Leonberger (aka small wooly dog, fuzzball, oi)
Now lambing has begun, and the paranoia of last lambing season is back in full force. The looking at a ewe and trying to decide if she is looking sheepish, even for a sheep. They like to be alone when they give birth, hence they keep their back legs crossed while you are around.
Small wooly thing
Lambing kit
Giles always ready to help...as long as that involves getting a cuddle and eating something.
First winter storm of 2007
In less than a week I will be 28 years old and the world will rumble its way into 2008. I hope that it brings many more challenges for us to overcome and that all our diving groups go without a hitch (wishful thinking!).
An Autumn Stromness Sunrise
We are chartered to visit the northern isles of Orkney for three weeks, and Shetland for four, so if anyone from IB (or anywhere else for that matter) wishes to come aboard for a cuppa, please just let me know! We may also call into Fair Isle on the way past, as it is somewhere I have always wanted to visit.
So that's it really. 2007 has been a mad year, a year when plans became reality, when we were tested to the limit and passed.
Be happy and safe in 2008.
Comments
Thanks for a very interesting blog! Good diving in 2008.
Barney from Swithiod Happy New Year
Hi Diary of a Deckhand. I have tried to post a few comments, but they have disappeared into blogasphere. But would just like to say, what a simply amazing and interesting blog. That last photo is stunning. All the best for 2008
Squidgy the Otter from Blown away
A healthy and prosperous New Year to you and those you hold dear.
mjc from NM,USA
That is a very handsome cat...stripey...with a white bib...all the very BEST cats look like that!
Flying Cat from Merry New Year!
Thanks for you great pics and interesting stories/news. Have a Great '08!
greg from new jersey usa
Superb as always Oh short one.
Diving Dude from Darn sarf
all the very BEST cats FC? hmmmm
mia from purrondering at the pc
all the BEST cats FC? hmmm....
mia from purrondering at the pc
Sorry mia...SOME of the very best cats...
Flying Cat from a bit of a riddy
After coming to Orkney in May 2006 for 8 months, somehow I am still here. Running the MV Valkyrie in the summer and helping on the farm in winter is now my life. 
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