Seven years ago
Posted: Thursday, 11 September 2008 |
Two really rather nice days diving
Posted: Monday, 15 September 2008 |
Its not often I get to dive, and its even rarer that i get to dive with Hazel, or anyone for that matter. However, a week off and Bob on the Halton with space meant that we got to splash in on the Coln and on the Karlsruhe.
The Coln is one of my favourite dives and dropping in we descend the shot into what seems to be a green ping pong ball. Its pretty dark down there and the vis is poor at only 4-5m on the top of the wreck and 2-3m at the seabed. Hazel's torch refuses to fire up for a couple of minutes and then suddenly flickers into life. We make our way forward and i seem to spend the time looking at the fish which have been doing what fish are good at and making more fish The wrecks are really covered in life at this time of year and I love it. Slowly the metal wall on our left hand side rises up from the silty seabed and we come to the bow. Covered in plumose anemones it stands out nicely against the green gloom.
Going back over the top of the wreck i peer into the many holes and find a section of deck plate that has collapsed away, i am sure it was there last time i was here, although i could be wrong, i frequently am.
Back on the surface we find the weather has picked up a bit and there is a fair chop running but Bobs ladder is really pretty fab and i manage to get up it with the minimum of swearing/grunting, stagger to my seat and am greeted by a cup of tea and slice of cake. Perfect
A lazy surface interval with lovely thick pea and ham soup and a trip to Lyness and it is bliss to just sit back and do nothing. No cooking. No filling. Just chill. Ahhhhh thats better
The afternoon dive is on the Karlsruhe and Hazel decides to go off and play hunt the scallop while i go off and play hunt the fish. Getting to the bottom of the shot and i go the opposite way to the others on the dive and head for the stern. The vis is slightly better at around 6m and soon enough i am passing guns, the barrels of which are buried into the soft silt, the armour shielding and breech left sticking up into the water. Arriving at the stern i leisurley make my way back forward mainly looking for a conger, alas none were found, although a lovely ling with his electric neon blue highlights stayed out to allow me to admire him for a good minute or so. Moving forward i find the armoured control tower and peer in through the hole where the range finder once was, the mess of wiring inside testament to what was once in there. Forward still and i find another gun festooned with anemones making it stand out really well against the dark background. At what remains of the bow i follow a line of chain links into one of the hawse holes and then to the very bow itself where the rivets going around the horse shoe shapes bit of plate still stand proud.
Back to the shot slowly and i spend a little bit of time on the top of the wreck looking at fish and am really impressed by a rock cook wrasse, the blue in his colouring showing up so well in my torch.
Back up the shot and onto the boat in the choppy seas and once again am met by tea and cake.
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Weeel, having done battle with the deer pens and admitted defeat, we decided to go diving today. Bob once again had some space, so off we went to Stromness for 0830 ropes off. Gently leaving the dock we head down the flow towards the Coln again. The day is truly stunning, one of the early autumn days which has been dipped in silver, the clean light filtering through the high level of cloud, the wind having dropped to nothing allowing the waters of the flow to settle to a mirror glassy calm. It almost seems like a shame to disturb it with our passing.
Dropping in on the Coln I am pleased to find that the fairly small green ping pong ball of Wednesday seems to have increased somewhat and the vis has cleared a little. Heading aft we remain high over the wreck and find the high elevation anti aircraft gun festooned with life, the torpedo tube sticking up like a metal chimney with a lid from the twisted green and grey metal of the wreck. Carrying on aft we find both of the big guns and eventually run out of wreck. I then get to drive, Hazel having satisfied her appetite for rust, we go off fish hunting. Sticking close to where the now flat-ish hull meets the vertical-ish deck we drift over empty black portholes, shining even both torches inside reveals nothing of the cavernous space below us. One has a large edible crab just swinging himself onto the hull, but he rapidly tries to disappear as we come closer. However, crabs maybe are not the brightest of marine life and he merely hangs upside down inside the wreck by leaving one leg poking around the edge of the hole. Well, this is too much for me to resist, and coming closer I gently flick the leg off its perch and watch him cursing his way into the dark oblivion below. If crabs could swear, I bet he was.
Coming to the blast access hole I signal to Hazel that she should possibly lead this bit as my underwater sense of direction is possibly akin to a blind sea slug with vertigo and she safely gets us from one side to the other. Getting back to the shot we slowly ascend and find the boat waiting only a short way from us.
A lazy surface interval is spent alongside the Moaness pier on Hoy where I take a small walk along the beach in search of a beadlet anemone unfurled in a rock pool.
Back to the boat and we gear up for the grand finale – the Tabarka. Sitting in Burra sound where the tide runs so fiercely that the wreck cannot be permanently shotted, the currents bring huge amounts of food for the animals and blow away any silt. People are not exaggerating when they say this is one of the best dives in the UK – it is truly stunning but is changing every week now as various plates finally give way to the elements and fall away.
With Bob’s shout out of the wheelhouse window we jump, dropping like stones with fantastic accuracy right onto the wreck and down into the lee of the current. Pushing our way against the current and into the dark interior I am met by a wall of fish, I swear it was almost more fish than water inside the stern section. Juvenile Pollack (they were sticking their tongues out and blowing raspberries) swirl and dance, chased around by some invisible foe, silver bodies moving almost as one animal through gaps and spaces, vanishing from view only to return from somewhere completely different. Once in shelter I start to admire the interior of the wreck, every surface inside seems to be alive, something has decided to make it home. Ballast rocks, beams of metal all covered in tiny squat anemones in orange and white. Crabs peer out from their holes between stones and miniature scorpion fish swim jerkily to avoid my gaze. Passing over the three massive boilers you cannot help notice the jewel anemones in shocking pink any 8 year old girl would love to be seen in. Their delicate arms stretch upwards from the rusted metal into the current, patches of other anemones grow on the same boiler, the borders between the different species so distinct.
Big wrasse with their strange mobile eyes watch you as you pass, hoping that maybe something edible might happen and the fixed open mouthed stare of the conger eel from his safe hole.
All too soon it is time to leave and we ascend from the side of the wreck to the surface with smiles so big the karma of this dive will last a long while.
Some piccies from the day:
" >
" >
The Coln is one of my favourite dives and dropping in we descend the shot into what seems to be a green ping pong ball. Its pretty dark down there and the vis is poor at only 4-5m on the top of the wreck and 2-3m at the seabed. Hazel's torch refuses to fire up for a couple of minutes and then suddenly flickers into life. We make our way forward and i seem to spend the time looking at the fish which have been doing what fish are good at and making more fish The wrecks are really covered in life at this time of year and I love it. Slowly the metal wall on our left hand side rises up from the silty seabed and we come to the bow. Covered in plumose anemones it stands out nicely against the green gloom.
Going back over the top of the wreck i peer into the many holes and find a section of deck plate that has collapsed away, i am sure it was there last time i was here, although i could be wrong, i frequently am.
Back on the surface we find the weather has picked up a bit and there is a fair chop running but Bobs ladder is really pretty fab and i manage to get up it with the minimum of swearing/grunting, stagger to my seat and am greeted by a cup of tea and slice of cake. Perfect
A lazy surface interval with lovely thick pea and ham soup and a trip to Lyness and it is bliss to just sit back and do nothing. No cooking. No filling. Just chill. Ahhhhh thats better
The afternoon dive is on the Karlsruhe and Hazel decides to go off and play hunt the scallop while i go off and play hunt the fish. Getting to the bottom of the shot and i go the opposite way to the others on the dive and head for the stern. The vis is slightly better at around 6m and soon enough i am passing guns, the barrels of which are buried into the soft silt, the armour shielding and breech left sticking up into the water. Arriving at the stern i leisurley make my way back forward mainly looking for a conger, alas none were found, although a lovely ling with his electric neon blue highlights stayed out to allow me to admire him for a good minute or so. Moving forward i find the armoured control tower and peer in through the hole where the range finder once was, the mess of wiring inside testament to what was once in there. Forward still and i find another gun festooned with anemones making it stand out really well against the dark background. At what remains of the bow i follow a line of chain links into one of the hawse holes and then to the very bow itself where the rivets going around the horse shoe shapes bit of plate still stand proud.
Back to the shot slowly and i spend a little bit of time on the top of the wreck looking at fish and am really impressed by a rock cook wrasse, the blue in his colouring showing up so well in my torch.
Back up the shot and onto the boat in the choppy seas and once again am met by tea and cake.
_________________________________________________________________
Weeel, having done battle with the deer pens and admitted defeat, we decided to go diving today. Bob once again had some space, so off we went to Stromness for 0830 ropes off. Gently leaving the dock we head down the flow towards the Coln again. The day is truly stunning, one of the early autumn days which has been dipped in silver, the clean light filtering through the high level of cloud, the wind having dropped to nothing allowing the waters of the flow to settle to a mirror glassy calm. It almost seems like a shame to disturb it with our passing.
Dropping in on the Coln I am pleased to find that the fairly small green ping pong ball of Wednesday seems to have increased somewhat and the vis has cleared a little. Heading aft we remain high over the wreck and find the high elevation anti aircraft gun festooned with life, the torpedo tube sticking up like a metal chimney with a lid from the twisted green and grey metal of the wreck. Carrying on aft we find both of the big guns and eventually run out of wreck. I then get to drive, Hazel having satisfied her appetite for rust, we go off fish hunting. Sticking close to where the now flat-ish hull meets the vertical-ish deck we drift over empty black portholes, shining even both torches inside reveals nothing of the cavernous space below us. One has a large edible crab just swinging himself onto the hull, but he rapidly tries to disappear as we come closer. However, crabs maybe are not the brightest of marine life and he merely hangs upside down inside the wreck by leaving one leg poking around the edge of the hole. Well, this is too much for me to resist, and coming closer I gently flick the leg off its perch and watch him cursing his way into the dark oblivion below. If crabs could swear, I bet he was.
Coming to the blast access hole I signal to Hazel that she should possibly lead this bit as my underwater sense of direction is possibly akin to a blind sea slug with vertigo and she safely gets us from one side to the other. Getting back to the shot we slowly ascend and find the boat waiting only a short way from us.
A lazy surface interval is spent alongside the Moaness pier on Hoy where I take a small walk along the beach in search of a beadlet anemone unfurled in a rock pool.
Back to the boat and we gear up for the grand finale – the Tabarka. Sitting in Burra sound where the tide runs so fiercely that the wreck cannot be permanently shotted, the currents bring huge amounts of food for the animals and blow away any silt. People are not exaggerating when they say this is one of the best dives in the UK – it is truly stunning but is changing every week now as various plates finally give way to the elements and fall away.
With Bob’s shout out of the wheelhouse window we jump, dropping like stones with fantastic accuracy right onto the wreck and down into the lee of the current. Pushing our way against the current and into the dark interior I am met by a wall of fish, I swear it was almost more fish than water inside the stern section. Juvenile Pollack (they were sticking their tongues out and blowing raspberries) swirl and dance, chased around by some invisible foe, silver bodies moving almost as one animal through gaps and spaces, vanishing from view only to return from somewhere completely different. Once in shelter I start to admire the interior of the wreck, every surface inside seems to be alive, something has decided to make it home. Ballast rocks, beams of metal all covered in tiny squat anemones in orange and white. Crabs peer out from their holes between stones and miniature scorpion fish swim jerkily to avoid my gaze. Passing over the three massive boilers you cannot help notice the jewel anemones in shocking pink any 8 year old girl would love to be seen in. Their delicate arms stretch upwards from the rusted metal into the current, patches of other anemones grow on the same boiler, the borders between the different species so distinct.
Big wrasse with their strange mobile eyes watch you as you pass, hoping that maybe something edible might happen and the fixed open mouthed stare of the conger eel from his safe hole.
All too soon it is time to leave and we ascend from the side of the wreck to the surface with smiles so big the karma of this dive will last a long while.
Some piccies from the day:
" >
" >
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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