The Orkney Islands, location of Scapa Flow a organic harbour because the days on the Norse invaders, additional recently a base for the Royal Navy, The final resting location for your remains with the German Large Seas Fleet and also the destination for this years Selby Aquanauts diving expedition.
The story starts at the beginning with the twentieth century when Germany envious from the colonies of her European neighbours plus the wealth they’re bringing decided to build a navy to match that with the British Royal Navy, at the time the most effective inside entire world and protector from the biggest empire the entire world has known. With the Royal Navy as her target Germany commenced the first arms race from the 20th century.
The Royal Navy’s policy at this time was being capable to outfight and outgun the 2nd and 3rd navies in the globe combined so no two countries could form an alliance to defeat Britain and when Germany started out their building Britain took a close interest.
Considering that Britain was constantly more of a maritime nation than Germany the infrastructure was in location to create ships at will so this was a race Germany was destined to lose, specifically when Britain brought out the initial of a new class of warship, “the Dreadnought” larger and more powerful than any war ship ever built it gave its name to a new class of ships.
As the wonderful war started out Germany’s naval policy was to shell Eastern towns of England to tempt the Royal Navy out and take them out individually. This policy by no means worked as, Germany, generally nervous of what was over the horizon, tended to hit and run so the two strong navies played a game of cat and mouse around the North Sea, Each wanting to meet in battle, but nervous from the power of their adversaries, till May possibly 1916. Both fleets were definitely out in force when a Danish merchant ship steamed past around the horizen and each navies sent a detachment to investigate. The British ships were definitely met by an outnumbering force of the German “High Seas” fleet so turned and lead the Germans in the running battle onto the guns in the rapidly advancing dreadnoughts in the “Grand Fleet”. As darkness fell neither part could claim a definite victory. The Royal Navy had lost more ships but this was down to lighter armour to keep the ships quicker and more manouverable. Most in the German ships had sustained damage that would have sunk a British ship so appear the morning the German fleet had fled to harbour for repairs, numerous of them just floating hulks.
The following day the “Grand Fleet” was back again at sea as well as the “High Seas Fleet” was blockaded in port in no way to take for the seas in force with the remainder of the war.
As the war came to an end the after proud German navy was escorted to internment at Scapa Flow in which inside a final defiant act they scuttled 74 of their own ships. Some have been saved, other people beached and through the 20′s and early 30′s a massive salvage operation took part and many on the ships had been salvaged for scrap, but, with the onset from the second globe war this came to some stop, and then, in 쌙 when W.W.2 ended there was no shortage of scrap iron so the remaining 14 ship have been left to rest.
The Dive Trip
Sailing South from our base at Stromness within the mainland of Orkney we pass the brooding higher hills of Hoy on our appropriate and as we head slightly east into the calm waters of Scapa Flow the islands component. Inside the distance we can see the low mounds of Burray, Flotta,Holm, Fara and Ronaldsay. Hoy by the way got its name simply because it’s the hoyest island inside the Orkneys, the Vikings either had a dry sense of humour or were definitely not incredibly imaginative with name giving. It is a glorious day, the sun glistening around the blue green water ahead. It’s a forty minute trip out on the wreck we’re diving today. There is no rush to obtain our equipment together so through the next half hour the usual leg pulling and mickey taking goes on. For the duration of this time most with the divers have brought their gear up in the drying room where it was hung up last night and are starting to assemble it. A quantity of jobs should be done, making certain you got a very good air fill yesterday and for your majority of divers aboard analysing the Nitrox fill (Nitrox is an oxygen enriched air which has recently turn out to be the gas of alternative for most responsible and suitably qualified divers) Simply because the boat was full of Yorkshire folk there was of course the tight wad who used air all week since it absolutely was totally free, my nitrox bill for that week was £19.50 which I though was fine value in particular when it was increasing my diving time by about 30%.
We’re diving on the “Brummer” nowadays and with ten minutes to go the skipper Robert shouts down from your wheelhouse to galvanise us into action.
We arrive in the wreck website kitted up and prepared to go and as Robert slows down we step off in to the water. The wreck is bouyed so meeting my buddy on the bouy we exchange signals and begin our descent. Organic light fades as we go deeper till we see a dark shape below within the gloom. Landing about the deck along a row of empty portholes we exchange O.K.signals, make adjustments to our bouyancy and glide around the side. The Brummer lays on her part and we intend finning along the deck which is now vertical at our side.Descending for the seabed we appear up as well as the wreck is silhouetted in the greenyblue glow from above. Ascending slightly we set off along the deck our torches picking out several features until, passing the anchor chain capstans we come on the muzzle of a 5.9″ gun, gliding along the barrel and round the protective shield we appear to the conning tower, the command centre when in battle, the access door behind the conning tower is missing so we cautiously enter, disturbed silt threatens our vision so leaving we arrive to the bridge where by empty windows still look out for the battle which will in no way are available. Beyond that broken rigging,sagging handrails and dangling wires attest to her age. Checking our computers and contents gauges 35 minutes later we decide that’s it for this dive and retrace our route towards the line. The sunlight shines down to meet us as we make our ascent and right after pausing at 6 metres for a safety stop we finally emerge in to the morning sun. James around the bridge is waiting to exchange O.K. signs with us and soon Robert is coming to pick us up. Another good dive. When everyone is back on board we’re off to Lyness exactly where the naval base utilized being to visit the museum and have a bowl of soup inside NAAFI. Through the time we return about an hour and a half later James is just finishing charging up our cylinders and Robert is flat out around the upper deck asleep within the sun. Woken by our return he quickly has James casting off and it’s away to our 2nd dive.
The 2nd dive brings a selection of shallower dives. There are the blockships sunk from the sounds between the islands to maintain out the U boats,each second and primary world wars,a dive boat, bottle dives exactly where the rubbish of years has been dumped above the part (I observed a glazed stoneware preserve jar similar to one inside Stromness museum, others discovered an assortment of interesting old bottles) as well as the F2 a German escort boat similar on the R.N. corvettes. This was taken in war reparation but sunk, believed to have sprung a severe leak soon right after and was not considered worth lifting. This is the a single we’ll pick. An fascinating point of this wreck is that it had been sold for salvage in 1968 and during salvage a gale blew up as well as the salvage barge with every one of the salvaged parts went down yet again. The wreck lies in only 16 metres at substantial water and rises to within 7 metres of the surface. The hull is broken in two using the stern upright along with the remainder on its port side. We drop down onto the barge and explore the salvaged parts for a while then stick to the weed covered line for the ʾ in which we seem being a source of interest to some amount of wrasse about a foot lengthy that adhere to us close to the wreck. Like every one of the wrecks it’s covered with life. Apart through the a lot of varieties of fish we see the odd seal. You’ll find numerious specimens on the tiny Devonshire cup coral, several varieties of anemone such as the large plumose, quite a few sorts of starfish such as some huge sunstars above a foot across and on all the overhangs and superstructure grow dead men’s fingers, a soft coral. You will find also a lot of sponges,sea squirts and sea urchins and obviously crabs, lobsters and shellfish Quite a few in the spider crabs grow a garden of weed on their backs so sometimes even though near the seabed a clump of weed suddenly walks away.
As we leave the break inside the hull behind we should ascend slightly to go in excess of for the other aspect to reach the superstructure wherever we discover the single mast laid within the seabed the searchlight platform nevertheless recognisable. The forward gun is intact and the starboard anchor chain leads out through the bow. Being a smaller ship at shallower depth we are able to cover the whole wreck in one particular dive and even now uncover time to collect a bag of scallops for tonights meal. Lovely fried in garlic butter.
Other wrecks dived for the trip are Kronprinz Wilhelm, Karlsruhe, Koln, Dresden, Gobernador Bories and also the Tabarka. The latter becoming a blockship in Burra sound. Formerly a merchant ship she lies upside down and becoming in a position of strong tides is swept clean and consequently there is no silt inside to disturb. Plates are missing but the construction seems sound so we enter. Passing by means of the engine room torches are needed as without them it’s pitch black. Three boilers lay in the row on the bottom and underneath a single is really a large lobster (tonights tea) While Christine my buddy is trying to tease it out I nipped the back again of her leg, After she jumped I got a punch for my troubles. Passing through the dark engine room we see two a lot more torch beams coming towards us and two a lot more from our club pass by exchanging O.K.s around the way.
This was the last dive and so with heavy hearts and fond memories of a fantastic week of diving we head back to Stromness to pack prepared for the long drive house tomorrow.
If you’re inspired by the tale of our diving trip why not take a diving course and join us on one of our quite a few trips close to Britain. Contact John Hewitt. Master scuba diver trainer on Selby 702487 along with the adventure can start.
