Category Archives: UK Dive Trips

As the two explorers descend the bow shot line the huge structure of the SMS Dresden comes into view. She is laying on her port side between 25 – 38m as she is resting on a mound. Emily suggested a dive on her bow as our first dive ‘to get our eye in’ ready for the battleships and to come back later in the week to spank her pert back side – a very shapely stern that hasn’t sagged with age!

We search out the crest on her bow and see one of her guns. As well as plenty of twisted metal there is lots of life with plumose anemones, dead mans fingers, all sorts of star fish and crabs. No deco time is running low so back to the line to ascend for lunch!

Spag Bog with lashings of cheese swiftly followed by warm carrot cake! Yum!

After lunch we rearrange our weight, drop a couple of kilos and check out the neck seal improvised repair – a knife strap. After another thorough briefing the 3 explorers were ready to dive again…. It would be the SMS Karlsruhe another light cruiser weighing in at a mighty 5,400 tons and 112m in length. She has a lot of damage as a result of being blasted for salvage. Her build quality was better than the Dresden so more has been salvaged causing the collapse of some of her structure.

1,2,3….. Would the neck seal hold…… YES…. You Beauty!

We moved forward past the 2 large winches and down to the bow which was resplendent in plumose anemones; simply wonderful. A snoozing scallop is disturbed and entertains us with its comic dance. We then move back toward the 2 forward facing 5.9 inch guns. These look magnificent in the excellent 8m + viz and we are amazed to find a crab using one of the gun muzzles as its home. We then explore the conning tower and bridge area before ascending the shot line at a leisurely pace. A perfect end to our first day……

As we motor home the boat is filled with excited chatter as everyone swaps stories about what they encountered below and how they feel the week will progress.

Inevitably there have been a few minor kit issues so Emily explains the overnight suit repair service offered by Ben at Scapa Scuba. As soon as we dock, we are off to see if our suits can be worked on overnight and returned to the boat ready for day 2

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Early on Friday morning 3 intrepid explorers set off in a 13 seater mini bus weighed down with 7 people’s dive kit to drive the 732 miles to Scrabster! After an overnight stay in Inverness we arrived in Scrabster on Saturday morning to be greeted by a friendly seal, waving us off on the ferry to Stromness. Finally we had arrived after 31hrs!……

We are here for 6 days of awesome diving in ‘the flow’. Directed by Emily our skipper we quickly unpacked our kit on the MV Radiant Queen and settled in to the Divers Lodge accommodation. The bus was parked so bring on the diving!

Sunday 6th October

The household slowly awakes and we all gradually migrate towards the kitchen. As tea and porridge are readily consumed the conversation changes from ” how did you sleep?” to “What will we dive?”…. The excitement is building!

After the boat briefing we are underway racing to get to the first dive site ahead of the other boats. It’s going to be the Dresden! She is a light cruiser of 5,500 tons and is 153 metres in length. After a thorough and informative briefing, supplemented with drawings, photos, 3d images, reference books and biscuits we all know what our plan is.

The 3 adventurers kit up and are ready for the water. 1,2,3….. We’re in, got the shot line and ready for our buoyancy check. Disaster! A flood and one of the team must return to the boat to dry out and come up with an improvisation to rectify an over sized neck seal. Undeterred, the last two descended the line in 11 degrees with 6 – 8 metres of viz…….. What wonders awaited them………..