The Start of the Summer
The days pass with the speed if a snail gently gliding between the slender blades of the week. Orkney is bathed in the soft light which can make everything beautiful, no matter how mundane it seems to the passive eye. The weather staying calm, warm and sunny for what seems like an eternity, making the leaf buds burst open, decorating the trees with patches of green.
Many small jobs are done on the boat, my bunk is given the jigsaw treatment which increases the size to almost double what it was, but the unforeseen drawback of this is that the new mattress brings my head a critical few inches closer to the ceiling of the bunk itself, meaning that on my second night in the new setup I hit my head more times than I did in the whole week previously. Ouch.
Our group arrives and they seem impressed with the boat, although the boat is only half of the charter, we hope to have learned the vital lessons from the weeks before and everything goes smoothly, the excellent weather helping things along no end.
Two of the best things we bought from Ikea were the two hammocks, cries of “oh look they have got the sails out again” fall on deaf, thoroughly comfortable and relaxed ears. Pass me a cold beer.
The ADUS wreck sight software goes down a storm, but we need to work out which cable we need to link it up with the widescreen TV in the saloon for maximum effect. We also let Ben loose with one of the scooters but we find it is too positively buoyant for him, so a minor tweek for that and we will let him have another go.
Arriving back in Stromness we find that the dive boats have been relegated to the far corner of the main basin, everyone squashed up, lying two abreast on the middle pier. We moor up on the marina pier, which is ironically called the dive boat pier - pity no dive boats can actually use it, what with the Voe Viking, Kirsty M on the useful side, and the other being either too shallow or full of boats sitting there rotting on their ropes.
I manage to drop my regs off to Ben for servicing - about time too, I have had them for years and never got them sorted out hehe.
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Stromness takes on an almost carnival atmosphere with the Pink Weekend in full flow on Saturday night, with everyone from the pink drag queens, Elvis, Cruella de Ville and for some strange reason lots of smurfs…..For anyone who doesn’t know, the pink weekend came around from the tragic death of Ingrid Rosie, a local resident from cancer. Ingrid was only in her twenties when the disease claimed her, and Stromness has never forgotten her, each year raising thousands of pounds for cancer research. Unfortunately the only pink clothing I own is a pair of pyjamas with reindeer on them….and a couple of pairs of pants, so even though no-one saw, I did wear pink.
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Standing in the cold wind on the whaleback we spot some seals on the Holms, two small islands just outside the harbour. They show up as a slightly silver gray banana shape among the soft browns of the kelp at low water.
Seals seem to have this thing where they don’t like to get their bum or their head wet. To be honest, it makes sense to me, there are two bits of me I don’t like to get wet in cold water, but then I’m not a seal. I would say it went with the territory but hey.
They must really curse us when we go past and a cold series of waves from our wake wash towards them. “Oh no Gladys, quick, keep your bum hole dry!”. I wonder if it is because when they swim around they have to keep their bums tightly shut (or they would fill up with water otherwise), and take the time they are out of the water to relax a little bit. It would explain why they don’t like getting their back ends wet anyway.
It somehow seems there is some sort of conspiracy to move us out of the harbour entirely. Mooring on the south pier (the one sometimes known as the ice plant pier) overnight, we then go out the next day and return to find the two boats moored there have moved forward even more. If they move again tomorrow we will be entirely unable to use this pier too. Oh well, someone will be used as a big wooden fender.
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I still hate radio one. Dear lord, I dislike radio two now too. Radio one plays an inordinate amount of utter drivel, rap (spelled with a silent and invisible c) r n’ b (makes me want to buy a vowel) and just total “what the fuck is this”, then when they actually play something decent, they start talking over it about half way through. SHUT UP! I listen to the radio to hear music, not some jumped up over paid prick witter on about nothing. Radio two has some bloke who has an opinion about *everything* and uses his time on the airwaves to broadcast it to those of us unfortunate to have broken their ipod.
It kind of made me realise what things I really do need and use. It also makes me reflect on some of the crap I have spent money on and now never ever use. I guess it’s the equivalent of the rowing machine or exercise bike some of us have littering our spare rooms. There is some kind of unwritten rule that they become an airing frame for things we need to dry hanging up. Strange really, maybe Its genetic.
So the ipod is near the top of the list of things that really made my life nice. I didn’t appreciate it until it broke (it went fizz pop splat in a terminal kind of way. I may bury it at sea….) and now I am forced to listen to crappy radio stations all day. Other things - my hair drier. But then I suspect I am about to get the mop chopped off so its not really an issue for much longer. (edit, been, chopped short now). Other things - a bath tub. Sometimes at the end of a hard day, all you want to do is to kick back in the bath with a big glass of wine and a good book and the world can fuck off for a couple of hours.
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Freediving
I decide to take advantage of the good weather and freedive, so we drop the line down the side of the boat and I struggle with the tight straps on the monofin. Soon enough I am breathing up on the lift platform and duck downwards into the green, just me and the jellyfish. The gossamer bodies so fragile, the beautiful translucent blue and the tiny threadlike arms hanging below them. I reach to within 3m of the bottom of the line and then head back up. I can hear the noise of the boat - she is much noisier than the Stormdrift ever was.
I can see the dark mass above me, and head up to the surface…only to find it is the wrong side of the boat. Bugger. I duck back under and reappear next to the lit platform and begin the breathe up again. This time I follow the line closely and get to within 2m of the concrete filled bucket at the bottom. Turning back I keep close to the line but find myself right below the keel. This spooks me totally, my heart rate climbs and I instantly get the urge to breathe. Clinging to the line I pull hard and follow the contour of the red wood, getting two more powerful kicks from my diaphragm I know I have utterly overcooked it. The cold air on my face never felt so good, I gasp and feel the intense pressure drop away. I try to get my pulse rate to drop away by doing a brief static hold but I get nowhere. Glancing back down the line I cant justify diving again. I wouldn’t get anywhere, I simply cannot relax following the fright I got.
Sitting here on the boat it is obvious what happened. The boat was being blown in the wind - we catch the wind so much with the whaleback and the saloon and galley acting like a sail in the breeze. The rope ended up being pulled below the boat by this movement, meaning I struggled. Also kitting up I forgot my mask, so had to go back below to find it, and in doing so knocked my head on part of the lift. This was one hell of a blow, it actually kept me awake with the discomfort of the lump which appeared like a mushroom. So, I was never going to be relaxed anyway, it having taken a few months to overcome the fact that I am in a skin tight rubber suit farting about on the boat in front of a bunch of blokes. I’m no oil painting, well, maybe the kind of one you would put in front of the fire to keep the kids away, but I am still acutely aware of the 12 pairs of eyes watching me.
All of this to one side, I did get to around 17m, deeper than I have ever been before.
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Guillemots are a common sight around the flow, the tiny birds bobbing on the waves. They are black, with a tiny flash of white on each wing and the most spectacular red legs which you can see paddling like mad under the water propelling the tiny body around the harbour. They always remind me of some small child wearing a black jacket, white mittens, red tights and red wellies - don’t ask me why! When they fly they look like a little clockwork toy, the same when they wiggle their red leggies. So hence on here they are known as a clockwork toy.
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Thinking about things that are genetic there was a big fuss about there being a fat gene. One side was full of vitriol, claiming it to be utter bunkum - I mean, these people deciding this will only have been at university for five years, qualified as a doctor and have lord only knows how many years experience in genetic research…..what the hell do they know?
Then we have the other side where everyone who has a larger midriff than normal claims they have the gene and its nothing to do with the litre of coke and pie and chips they had for their lunch…..
What do I think? Well, I doubt I have the fat gene. However, we know someone who eats like a sparrow, if she ate any less she might as well not bother having a kitchen in the house. However, she weighs lots. On the other hand, I also know someone who eats like a total pig. He eats everything and anything he wants, does little exercise over the winter and yet remains a 32inch waist.
So the people sitting there on their high horses saying the only reason you are fat is because you eat too much of the wrong stuff may well be heading for a long fall to the ground. That’s the problem with a high horse. it’s a long way down.
But on the other side of the coin, I know that if I eat crap, ice-cream chocolate, drink lots of beer I will get fatter. If I eat sensible stuff and keep active (haha no problems there!) then I lose weight. I don’t know, maybe its to do with the way our bodies process what we eat, one size zero person can eat a mars bar and stay the same, someone else just has to walk past the shop selling them and puts on 1lb. All I know is it is nowhere near as simple as “to lose weight all you need to do is eat less and exercise more” - life tends to get in the way of that too much.
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The day looks as if it has been dipped in silver, pure pale light shines through the high cloud giving everything an almost black and white tint, dulling colours and obliterating shadows but anything which can reflect the light, does so. The air is still, the water like mercury and im going diving in a world that looks like the inside of a pingpong ball.
I wake up far too early, roused from the warm cocoon of the duvet by the 5000 tonne alarm clock (the ferry) and end up hunting around for all my kit which is actually spread over a 72ft radius, right from the bow to the stern (my wing and dry suit are in the focsle and my hood was in the aft cabin. Computer was in the drawer in the wheelhouse and my fins in the fish box tucked underneath the rear of the galley. Cylinders are on the deck in their little hidey hole and I am almost ready….all I need is my regs, which are in the Red Shed getting serviced. Bugger. Hazel keeps offering me hers, but on my first dive of the season, where I get to find out if I can actually remember what to do (other than jump in, sink a bit, breathe in, breathe out, swim round, come up, don’t die) I would rather have my regs where I know where everything is. Sooooo I need to hot foot it along to the shed to see if Ben has got himself out of bed and I can pick up my hopefully perfect regs.
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Stromness has so many things which make it what it is. Every house along the sea front has its own tiny slipway made from stone blocks placed there in years long forgotten, wooden boat houses nestle between the toes of the streets.
The sea front is not a straight line, the land seldom needed defending from the ravages of the waves therefore the jagged edge that we see has evolved. Houses built tall and narrow, some say with a Norwegian look to them, the odd stone roof still fending off the elements. Tiny winding alleyways disappear like water rivulets between pebbles. Piers jut out into the voe, lobster pots dry in the early summer sun, its warmth making the trees on the hill burst into green.
A tiny working port, which over the winter does not sleep it only slows down, things which carry on regardless of the weather keeping the pulse of stone beating.
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Currently there is a pigeon under the pier hooting its head off at its own echo. I guess it is saying “sod off this is my pier” in pigeon and some feathery git is saying it straight back at him. Oh dear.
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First dive of the season
The flow is even flatter than the previous days, with it being hard to see the join between the sea and the sky. I have hunted out all my gear, made sure it all seems to be working and clamber into it. Stepping off the side of the boat and swimming to the shotline I feel the unpleasant rush of water into my mask. I pull the skirt flatter against my face and begin my descent but it really has no effect. Once I start to sink I add a little gas to the wing to slow me down, but it seems to make no difference. I press the button for longer, hearing the hiss of the gas as it leaves the inflator.
The wreck looms from the green below and I still seem to be adding gas to slow the descent, but it is making no difference. I end up having to use the suit to make any odds, not just a quick squirt to take the squeeze off. All a little task loaded, a flooding mask and then a buoyancy failure there is no way I am leaving the top of the wreck to explore the deck.
Surely I don’t need a lot less lead? Nothing has changed in a big way. Hmmm. I try adding more gas and then I hear it - the sound of bubbles behind my head. Not the gushing freeflowing o-ring blown sphincter tightening type bubbles, more the kind of “you have got a hole in your wing you fucking muppet” type bubbles. Oh fannies. I mooch around on the top of the Brummer for 20 minutes getting to the bow and then making my way back again. The hull is covered in brittlestars plumose anemones and the odd clump of dead mens fingers. I find a small flattie - no bigger than my hand pretending to be a patch of rust, but a quick prod and he scoots off into the distance. A very pale scorpion fish is also hiding on the deck, hardly camouflaged at all against the brown background.
I follow the line of the deck back to the bridge deciding to can the dive before I get anywhere near a deco stop. No point in that when you are not sure about your kit and you are solo. I find the pale line of the shot next to the bridge and head back up. On de-kitting I find that the legacy of the rather quick descent is a fine set of dry suit hickies all down my shoulder, a perfect imprint of my bra strap in bruise. Lurvely.
A surface interval is made much more enjoyable when we spot a pod of risso’s dolphins heading east through the flow. Black fins break the surface and you can hear them breathe, the pffffffffffffft of the breath of cool Orcadian air.
I drop the wing in to Ben at Scapa Scuba and he excels himself by getting it back to me a few hours later all repaired, there having been a hole where the bladder meets the plastic elbow joint.
The next day we are joined by Baloo (who was crew on the Karin last year, but is now a freelance instructor for most technical courses) Kirstie his fiancée and Alistair her son. We head out to dive the Konig, the deepest and most broken of the battleships, her deck only protruding a few meters from the silty bottom. Passing over the wreck there is a drop down to 50m from the western side of the wreck, so I can see why she gets the reputation she does as the least dived wreck of the german fleet.
After cooking some lunch I get to dive in the afternoon on the Koln, I gather my kit together, set the nitrox mix on my computer and jump in. Heading down the shot my mask is free of the annoying trickle of water that plagued my descent the previous dive. The shot appears to be in much the same place as it was the previous year and I head down to the seabed as I am on familiar territory now. I use the bright beam of the torch to peer under all of the fallen plates for the wide, staring blue eyes of a conger and am not disappointed. I also find a few ling which are much less timid of approaching divers. Arriving at the bow I take a peek at the impressive formations of anemones and dead mens fingers which plaster the hull. Making my way back aft I pass Baloo and Kirstie and head for the stern with the specific intention of seeing the aft deck gun. Swimming past what remains of the bridge, over masts and pipes lying on the seabed I grab a glimpse of a female cuckoo wrasse, a few ballan wrasse manage to sneak up on a Pollack which seems to be dozing among some broken plates. The stern appears from the green and I ascend a few meters and swim at around midships level until I find the gun. Rather impressive it is too. Getting higher on the wreck exposes me to a little more current - we are on big tides this week so it wasn’t entirely unexpected to have some water movement. The jagged hole where the engine room blast access has left its mark and up to the top of the hull I find one of the biggest nudibranches I have ever seen. I have no idea what kind he was, I have only ever seen tiny specimens of this type before, but he was what I would call a purple dreadlocked nudi, fat sausage-like fingers coming from a pale body, each finger having a pale tip. He was easily 10cm long, and quite rounded, maybe the size of a kiwi fruit. Fantastic!
Finding the shot I take a look at my computer and begin my ultra slow ascent. I have decided that this year I will be making all of my ascents ultra slow, plus adding pyle stops to anything deeper than around 15m. Hopefully this will keep me feeling good after dives, I certainly noticed a difference after these two.
Getting to 3m I begin my deco, all 7 minutes of it. Fortunately there was a nice thermocline at around 15m so it is all done in a very pleasant 10 degree water. Toasty warm hehe.
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Diving solo seems to be such a big issue for some people, for me it is the norm. Somehow a dive with a buddy is such a rarity I forget what to do, I guess I make a crappy buddy these days. Hazel and myself scrounge a couple of spaces on the Jean Elaine for a day, joining a group from the North East who seem to be having a great time.
First dive is on the Kronprinz Wilhelm, a 26,000 tone battleship - the shallowest of the battleships in 34-38m to the seabed. We enter the water and make our way down the shot, I get a little trouble from my mask as it floods again and do a quick bubble check over Hazel - a small trail of bubbles from the cylinder valve - just a mist, and a few bubbles from the dry suit connection and we are goood to go. Dropping down close to the seabed we make our way aft and I spot a huge head and body protruding from a few twisted plates. A free swimming conger emerges, lazily making his way from one part of his lair to another. He is easily 1.5m even 2m long, completely not bothered by the two divers following him along. Finally he disappears into the wreck, just a flick of his tail as he vanishes.
We move up a level on the wreck, and turn 180 degrees to retrace our fin strokes over the top of the wreck.
I need to put up a blob as there is no chance of us finding the shot again, so I make myself slightly negative and just rest on top of the wreck - it is way to early in the season and a severe lack of practice for me to be trying a midwinter deployment. I have no problems acknowledging I need to practice this, things like this are no weakness as long as you see them. So I send up the SMB from the top of the wreck and we ascend the line, finding a rather limp and flaccid SMB on the surface, oh dear. Next time I need to put a little more gas into it.
Second dive is the Koln, a dive I am totally at ease with. We drop in and after a quick check over and a sign language conversation we decide to head for the bow with a possibility of doing the swim through - depending on how we feel. We head along at deck level and I am suddenly aware that it is very quiet…..turning around I am faced with empty wreck and open ocean. Bugger. I ponder what to do and then continue heading for the bow, thinking that if Hazel has simply lost me we will reconvene at the entrance to the swim through. Irresponsible? Not really, simply following the plan. Luckily we had agreed on the boat that if we got separated that we would simply carry on with the dive as planned unless either of us had a problem prior to that, then we would ascend, or if we were inside the wreck, then we search until we reach the end of our gas supply. Reaching the bow I decide not to enter the wreck - it is a bit silly solo so close to the start of the season. Heading back aft I see a familiar shape in the gloom, a Hazel appears from the green.
We enter the swim through and it suddenly seems so much less. Less everything, exciting, intriguing, down right dangerous. I wonder why we are in there at all. And then I see it. Greenlight filtering downwards. Metal on three sides of me and I am inside of it all. The only clear way is up and out and even then it is sideways and lets try to find a clear way too. But the beauty, the sheer perfection of the patches, the islands of the green light amongst the dark seas of the obscured wreck draw me in.
More and more recently I have noticed I am losing interest in the wrecks themselves. Bugger. The Brummer, Dresden or KPW. *sigh*. I need to do some dives to make me appreciate these wrecks for what they are - significant chunks of history and intrigue. I doubt there is very little we couldn’t find out about these wrecks by looking at plans freely available if you know where to lookl and how much silver to cross palms with. Not much is secret these days. So what on earth draws us to go and risk our lives to see shuch things? I have no idea.
What drives me? At the moment it is a drive to see new life, a body of water that is springing to life.
Friday and Hazel didnt get a pink pass, having to stay on the farm and work with the sheep. I go out with Andy and Ronnie and we dive the Dresden and then the Doyle. The Dresden is fairly broken up, and i head for the bow where she leans over at a precarious angle. Huge gaping holes appear where the metalwork has been corroded away, letting the green show through. I make my way to the stern at mid-deck level and then up the shotline to the surface.
The Doyle is one of the blockships and i had last dived it in 2004. Glancing up at the wheelhouse before i jump off Andy signals me to look down, as i splash in, i immediatley look down to see the wreck - no need to use the shotline at all. The swimthrough is one of the most enjoyable parts of this wreck, but the tide was so utterly slack i decided to tour the outside of the wreck too. The hull is remarkably intact and part of the anchor protrudes from the huge pile of pebbles under the bow at 16m. Having gone right round the outside admiring the nudi’s and anemones i enter the wreck and have a pootle around the swimthroughs and holes, having a minor “actually, no i dont want to be in here” moment inside one of them when i do the mental check of “for gods sake woman, there is nothing in here that will eat you…..other than a whopping conger”.
To pay for the dives i help Andy get the Jean Elaine ready for the divers arriving the next day, come up from the forward accomodation very hot and bothered (having just made 8 beds) and ask ronnie where my bottle of juice was. On finding it i take a big swig only to find that it had been filled with salt! RONNIE!!!!! You rotten sod. (he had previously put lead in my jacket pockets).
(edit) - here is what could have seriously spoiled my day….
Oh well.
Currently on the farm for a break from the boat.
Dive safe.
