Scapa Flow
An ex-member of TSAC (Chris Brough) wanted to dive Scapa Flow on his first visit back to the UK since the lockdown, so he got together 5 of TSAC’s current members to join him on MV Clasina for 6 days diving in October 2022. Four of us made the long journey up to stay overnight in the Belgrave Arms, Helmsdale on Friday 14th October. This allowed us a leisurely trip to Thurso to meet up with the other two group members on Saturday’s 1315 Scrabster to Stromness ferry, where one of our group started celebrating her retirement (congratulations Debbie!) and another his return to Scapa Flow diving after 28 years (great to see that, Ian!)
We boarded the boat that afternoon and met up with 6 members of University of Nottingham dive club who we were to share it with. After unpacking and setting up our dive gear there was some daylight left to wander around and re-familiarise ourselves with the centre of Stromness.
Our first 2 days diving were spent exploring the 4 cruisers (Sunday: Dresden (bow) & Karlsruhe; Monday: Coln & Brummer) after boat skipper Bob Anderson’s excellent briefings set our expectations for each dive.
On Tuesday we progressed to our first battleship, Mark Graf, with another dive on the Karlsruhe that afternoon. Most days between dives the boat moored at Lyness, and on one day we were able to stay long enough to visit the newly extended Museum there.
Our first dive on Wednesday morning was another battleship, Kron Prinz, which was followed in the afternoon by the submarine UB116. The latter was poi as this had been sunk in action, rather than being scuttled after the war like the other wrecks. That night we stayed overnight in Burray where the whole boat went ashore for a meal in the Sands Bar & Restaurant.
Thursday saw us dive the Dresden again this time from stern to bow, as well as the block ship Tabarka in the afternoon, which ended with an energetic drift dive before being picked up. Our final day (Friday) found us diving the remaining battleship, Konig, before our last dive on the Dresden (again from stern to bow).
We’d like to thank the skipper and crew of the Clasina for an excellent trip of great dives, with safe pickups and good food. We were also grateful for the skipper’s flexibility in accommodating different dive requests on several days and were impressed that all of the crew were diving as well as us.
We ended our stay in Stromness with a meal at the Ferry Inn (traditional haunt of Divers in Scapa) before boarding MV Hamnavoe again to stay in cabins overnight to sail back to the mainland for an early start to our journey home. Great diving with a great bunch of divers!
Report by Paul Tweedale
