Halton Ocean

Markgraf in the morning followed by the V83 and in for an early finish so they could go walkabout on the mainland. Weather; still cold but light building moderate NW with sunshine.

Tabarka.

Some things don’t translate, but other things are good where ever you come from. Warm water in the gloves after a dive is one of those things..

Koln first thing. Poles went first and such is the speed of the internet these days, the two geordies are still down!! Sitting here watching their bubbles. Light westerly. Still cold.

Early start to beat the rush and headed to the Brummer first. Quick lunch at Houton and then up to do the Gobernador Bories. Now sat at the pier in Longhope waiting to go to the Royal for supper. Weather cold but sunny. NW F4.

Bonny day today. Light NW with mostly sunshine, though cold in the wind. Vis superb: the water has that blue glow with it. The troops dived the stern of the Dresden this morning followed by the F2/barge in the afternoon. Things are getting a bit busier with a few more boats about.

Orcas were seen last week in the flow:

http://www.yorkshire-divers.com/forums/underwater-video-photography/38056-orcas-scapa.html?highlight=orcas

and the two lads seen them on the ferry on the way over yesterday but no sign yet for me. Still, they usually linger for a couple of days on their migration so there is hope yet.

“Schott”

Splash.

Sorted.

Not that they were long dives, just that they were on a Saturday!

Jumped off the ferry at half one, assembled kit and bimbled off to do the Karlsruhe. The Poles are flying at the end of the week so need to get the dives in early.

Weather NW 10-15kts, sunny but cold. Vis good at mo: water translucent green again.

Think we are on the Dreden the morn but just happy to be out again.

“Jump”

Splash, splash.

“Jump”

“Jump”

“Allez”

“Springen”
“JUMP”
“JUMP!!!!!!!”

“Hang on, Ill come round again…”

Two geordies and the rest from Poland this week.

Now, at a guess, it is around 1000 m from my house to the boat. JL wanted the toaster on 24th Apr. It duely arrived yesterday, 18th May, a transit time of 25 days or an average speed of 1.6m per hr. Slow as this is, it is probrably quite fast for a toaster. It is however, still a lame excuse!

Just recieved by email (now you see why I am grey before my time)

“Registered with Yorkshire Divers and pressed the button for you. Strangely,
despite your comments, the thumbs down button did work….. “

Just had the very long term forecast: apparently it is going to be windy in september (gale force most of the last week). Marvellous this science thing. Quite how they do it is a wonder.

The gate was cut to fit the gap between two ribs and for many years was quite ample for the job. Divers were quite happy to jump out without getting anything caught and all was happy days.

As time has gone on, either I have started to attract more divers of a technical ilk or divers as a whole are wearing more kit, because people no longer fit through the gate. Twins will go through ok. Twins and a stage with a squeeze. But two stages and short legs.. not a hope.

Up till now I just laughed at them struggling and called them christmas trees but at the end of the day they have a point.

And they are customers.

So I have cut another bit off my boat.

The gate is now wider.

One of these days someone with twin scooters and a quadset is going to get stuck, moan and then the whole cycle will start again.

Top French TV show filming in Scapa Flow

ORKNEY will feature on prime time French TV later this year, when a French diving group’s
exploits in Scapa Flow are revealed.

The Paris-based channel France 3 film crew followed a group of divers on a trip to Scapa Flow last week visiting the wreck sites of the German Fleet scuttled in 1919. The team was filming for a show called ‘Thalassa’, which goes out on Friday evenings with between 4 and 5 million viewers each week.

The diving group, which has a special interest in wartime wrecks, normally dives the wrecks off the Normandy beaches. One of them, Yves Marchaland has written detailed books on French wrecks and was interested in comparing the wreck sites in Scapa Flow to the vessels he is more familiar with back in France, including the ‘Courbet’ which was a French flagship during WW1 and was scuttled during WW2 off the Normandy coast.

Speaking from the deck on the dive boat ‘Halton’ in Stromness on Friday morning he said
that the team had very much enjoyed the week it spent in Orkney, despite poor weather and poor
visibility under the water.

‘‘We had a good strong wind and the visibility was not too good,
but we are used to similar conditions in Normandy.’’

He said that during the time here they had dived all of the German wrecks as well as a block ship. The group employed the help of Longhope diver Angus Budge who was controlling the lighting as the team carried out the underwater filming.

They also interviewed veteran diver Sanday Roberston from Lyness who is an expert on
diving in Scapa Flow. Angus said that the language barrier was a bit of a problem while working with the team. ‘‘I was holding the lights as they filmed different scenes underwater, it was difficult to know exactly what they wanted but it was interesting though,’’ he explained.

Ramon Gutierrez is a journalist with the TV station as well as being the director of the programmes they film and was accompanied by two freelance cameramen on the trip.

‘‘We had briefings every day about the underwater filming and used very powerful 4000 watt lights underwater. Angus did very well and improved every day, he was very good,” he explained. Ramon said that filming for his TV show, which is based on various aspects of the sea, sees him travel the world covering interesting and unusual stories. He said that the story of the German fleet would be an important story to tell the French people.

It will be shown in France in October.

Craig Taylor
Orkney Today

They will be back!

Mix and match today: half on KPW, others on Markgraf then off to the F2 for second dive for those that didn’t do a monster on the battleships.

Weather still holding though cold. Sun with light NE. Vis good.

Normally not out on a saturday (usually a change over day) but it fitted in better with the lad’s travel plans and not got punters next week. Will be putting in new compressor.

I have never seen a man put his hood on after and over his mask. I have seen a mask go on under a hood, and the hood then pulled up over the strap. I have seen a mask put on second. But I have never seen a hood pulled over a mask.

Ok, so he has an “underhood” and so is wearing two hoods but still. Amazing.

I hope I grow up old enough to have grand kids cos I am going to bore the pants off them telling of the things I have seen.

Aussies did an epic on the stern of the Dreden, the others on the bow followed by all then on the Karlsruhe. Weather remains sunny with light winds despite hail briefly mid afternoon. The locals say the vis is back to “good”.

The guys were on the Dresden, having gone down the bow shot, touched 30 odd meters and were on their way back after 20min in the water. JD was on a single 15 and starting to ascend within no-stop limits and 100bar remaining. A thump that was felt, rather than heard and A managed to catch the guage as it started to descend, free from the console. JD went onto K’s long hose reg and his 15 was left open to allow him some air for bouyancy etc. The guys then did 2@12m and 3@5m for safety and climbed back on the boat. I shut his bottle down as he walked past thinking he had a leak in his reg but nothing more. We checked his bottle before filling and there was still 65bar left, which goes to show how effective the constriction at the base of the HP hose is.

An explanation how it happened..

You can see from the pistures that the threads look undamaged and they went back together despite the internal spindle being absent. The console must have acted as a ratchet mechanism so that every time the air was checked it unscrewed the guage from the hose untill it finally came off.

Lessons to be learnt…

As always a calm head will get you out of a situation better than panicing and there is more air in a cylinder and a smaller hole in a hp hose than you (ie me) think!

Just swimming along when whump, psssss oops.

JD’s guage blew off the hose and out off the console to be then caught by his buddy.

Never seen that before and been diving a while now!!

Slipped to 2nd… OUT OF TWO!!!

Come on,,, press the thumb!