Halton Ocean

It was a tough choice … my 300th dive at the NDAC quarry in Chepstow, or on the SMS Karlsruhe, a 5,400 ton light

cruiser scuttled in Scapa Flow in 1919… hmmm. The wreck has been well salvaged, but there are still guns with

barrels wider than I could reach with my arms. We saw two congers hiding in pipe work. They weren’t small either.

After I’d dragged my buddy (the lovely Mark) back through a swim through to see it, the torch light and its owner

were looking like an easy target for lunch so I rushed Mark back out to open water and safety. I knew I was bigger

than it, but with a face ~6” across (the conger’s face!), I wasn’t going to test it in an arm wrestling match. The

girth of the eel didn’t compare to that of Elvis, a moray I met on my 100th dive 18 months ago, with girth bigger

than the Karlsruhe guns, last known resident of the disused oil platform off Mabul (near Sipadan, Borneo). This dive

in Scapa is high up in my list of faves. Anyone who likes cold water and interesting dives, get on up to Scapa and

see what this place has on offer. I’ve had a fantastic holiday, its just a shame that good things have to come to an

end…

The fat lady sings.

Job, jobbed.

Finito.

Another week done.

Dresden then Karlsruhe pm.

Weather looking good for getting away. Fingers crossed but more likely famous last words.

Fiance about her beau in pub at 10ish pm…

“M is not really drunk”

“…..he’s only had two pints.”

“….He’s just pretending to be drunk to keep in with the lads..”

There you go.. love is blind.

Just started a new category: “things you shouldn’t tell a skipper”

Cruiser day: Koln,Brummer.

…and we don’t say a peep.

Shame on us.

BA “Jump in, straight down, no teabagging”

D1 “What’s teabagging…”

BA “You know when you are making a cup of tea and how ever many times you prod the bag, it won’t go down..”

D2 “Nope, it’s when you lower your nut bag into her gop whilston…”

“Enough”

Not going to tell you who that filthy individual was.

Still, hadn’t heard that before and now gonna have to change my Tabarka briefing.

And how I make tea.

Enough.

Left the harbour in a gale, returned in a mill pond: Scapa!

Troops dived a split wave Markgraf/Koln then Tabarka.

Routine Burra Sound ascents.

Postcards recovered from the Karlsruhe a while back.

http://heritage.scotsman.com/people.cfm?id=899282006

The club trip to Scapa Flow was planned well in advance and the names rolled in almost as quickly as the trip was announced.

The make-up of the group meant that there not only some BIG personalities but also several BIG appetites to support.

Do we go for planned menus or just leave it to the whims of the day? From previous experience I decided that it would be best to at least partially plan ahead.

We based food costs at around £5.00 per person per day. That would give us a cooked breakfast, soup and rolls at lunchtime between dives and then an evening meal of a main course with dessert.

A mega pre-trip visit to Tesco’s saw the first £150 of the food budget well spent on basics and from there we would buy fresh items in Stronesson a daily basis.

After a long drive overnight we spent the first day sorting out and setting up.

Menus

Day One

Having travelled from South Wales for some ungodly number of hours, everyone tired and hungry.A big fresh baked Lasagna (a vegetarian tray for one of colleagues as well) with Baked Potatoes followed by Fresh Apple pie and custard and/or cream. were quickly devoured.

Day Two

Breakfast The day started well with a full cooked breakfast, using only the best of Scottish ingredients. I guess the empty plates were a testimony to the quality of the food – or was it just that everyone was ravenous??!?!

Lunch Fresh Leek and Potato Soup and rolls (between dives) were welcomed when everyone came into the cabin out of the cold wind. Of course, Bob the Skipper (Bob the Builders twin)!! just had to muscle in on the soup. Well I hiess you have to keep the skipper happy somehow – and for Bob a plate of soup seems to be the key!! Oh well – onwards and upwards.

A hot brew with Fresh Baked Sultana Scones polished of lunch nicely. Bob was in there again!!

Dinner Fried Chicken and Burgers with Lyonnaise potatoes and Garden Peas were followed by Bread and Butter pudding and/or Fresh fruit salad with cream/ice-cream/custard.

Day Three

Breakfast A full cooked breakfast saw Wayne have the appetite of four and we were lucky to have the glaze left on the plates. Today I convinced myself that it was definitely the quality of the cooking!!!

Lunch Home-made Scottish Vegetable soup was well received. Requests or more of this later in the week.

Two big plates of Fresh Baked Cheese & Mustard scones disappeared quickly. Huess where Bob was?!?!

Dinner Fajitas with Fried Chicken, Chille Beef and mixed Vegetables followed by Apple Crumble with cream/ice-crream/custard.

The vegetarian option was Steamed Mushroom and Onion Pudding.

Day Four

Breakfast There seemed to be smaller appetites around today. Maybe it had something to do with the pub last night)? However, a full cooked breakfast was enjoyed by most.

Lunch There was no lunch stop today but a freshly baked sultana sponge eased the hunger pangs. Strangely, the left over sausages and bacon disappeared throughout the day.

Dinner A good hearty Scottish Beef & Sausage stew with Mashed potatoes and cabbage followed by a Sultana Baked Rice pudding with Ice Cream was well received.

The vegetarian option was Pasta with vegetables in a White Wine & Cream sauce.

All this was followed by a fresh Baked Rice Pudding with Ice Cream.

Day Five
.
Breakfast Group decision to have Toast and Scrambled Egg

Lunch The really rich aroma from the Fresh Minestrone Soup had them clambering for the ladle after a challenging first dive – not to mention the bitter cold wind that Bob had ordered.

A request for more Fruit Scones saw 24 of them hit the oven and so kept everyone happy. Did I mention that Bob popped his around when the soup was ready?!?!?!

Dinner A really hot Chile with Baked potatoes, Rice or Spaghetti

…..Blog and cooking by RS. Thankfully not a naked chef. (BA)

It’s my birthday today and we awake to the best weather of the week so far; it’s sunny but with a fresh breeze that makes strolling around the deck in a drysuit very comfortable.

First on today’s ticklist is the Kronprinz, which I’ve previously dived only to see a wall of steel plate and rivets (which were less than riveting). As it was my birthday and Keith and I were armed with loads of gas, surely we were going to find the guns today.

Having agreed to dive on VPM-B tables, we descended to the seabed only to witness my HID torch make a feeble attempt to ignite. Note to self; buy a simple torch next time! The viz was awful but sharing Keith’s torch we started tracing our way along the periphery. It got darker and darker, we must have swum into the wreck I figured but neither of us was particularly concerned. Through the particles I could see the faint green glow of the way out and within a minute we were back outside. The rest of the dive was less eventful, but that’s how I like it with 30 minutes of ascent to clear. On the surface, Keith and I compared notes and agreed excuses. Overall it was a pleasant morning but a bit of a non-event in comparison to the previous day’s fun ferreting through the light cruisers.

During the morning’s dive the battery in Keith’s VR3 had expired and as a result of changing it lunchtime lost his RNT history. Also my single-gas Vyper was now bent and so this afternoon’s dive to the Gorbernador Bories would also have to planned on tables. Just to be on the safe side, we decided to limit ourselves to 30 minutes bottom time.

Even though the wreck was quite large, there seemed to be a particularly large number of swim-through traffic jams. The very enjoyable dive was concluded by a short wait on the ever increasingly lumpy surface. Fortunately Keith and I boarded before most of the others and before the sea and wind was at their worst.

First dive of the day was the Kronprinz Wilhelm, with Grant and Wayne. After some pretty spirited and frank discussion while planning the dive, we went the wrong way off the shot-line and missed the big guns we were aiming for. We even missed the smaller guns on the outside, while everyone else seemed to just drop astride them by accident. The main impression was that this is a huge wreck and it is pretty difficult to keep your head where you are on the ship.

The second dive was a really nice one with Marian on the Gobernador Bories, which is one of the blockships. A strong current here keeps the visibility pretty good at over 15m. There are some lovely swim-thrus which are really atmospheric, if a little tight in places! The wrasse are very friendly, almost as though they were expecting to be fed, and we found quite a few nudibranchs amongst the kelp. The current was really ripping when we finally ascended, and we encountered quite a few jellies populated with colonies of little fish. This is something we’d never seen before. Sadly, I’d been wearing two sidemounts for practise on this dive, and the surface conditions had gone to pot by the time we struggled back onto the boat. The boat pitched at just the wrong moment and I went down on my face like a 400lb sack of spuds! I was totally helpless, but thankfully nobody had the presence of mind to capture my humiliation on film.

Marian: …or so he thinks…!

Got him the next day! (BA)

I am trying to encorage the punters to take an active role in the blog (it is basically about them so they might as well write it!) but many people are confused when I show them the site and when they first approach things.

So here’s a FAQ.

Whats a blog?

Its just an online diary that is easier to update than a traditional web page.

How do I read it?

The blog itself is just a series of daily postings, with the newest at the top. Each new posting pushes the others down so the page becomes ordered in reverse order, chronologically.

Old posts are listed in the footer under “Monthly archives”

What are “categories”?

Furthermore, each post has a “category” to ease searching. I have the following categories..

1. Dates/free spaces: Any spaces or free dates that become available
2. Day to day doings: Just stuff that happens from time to time that caught my fancy
3. Dives: Every day I list the dives and weather
4. Punterblog: Entries written by the troops themselves
5. Winter: Stuff I do in the winter
6. Wouldn’t bother: As it says on the tin

This is just a way of indexing posts so that if, say, you are just wanting to know what dives folks have done recently, you can do a search for entries in the “dives” category.

What are “pages”?

There are “pages” that are more akin to traditional web sites. these are listed at the bottom of the page in a footer and work in the traditional manner. Amongst them, the site map is probrably the most useful, though the weather page can be a useful reference.

I want to get involved..

Post a comment: they appear at the end of each post.

I wanna come diving..

Check out late availability or drop me an email: bob@mvhalton.co.uk

The text is too small..

Press “Cntr” and “+”

Is there a spell checker?

Nope. Can’t you tell. In truth, the site is designed to be “throw away” in the long term… todays dives will not be on interest in a year.. so I don’t pay too much heed to typos.

Made the tide at half 12 for the Goby then home.

The wind is due to pick up the whole time now and we are in for a windy night. With a bit of luck it will have died down for the morning…

Spider’s web coming.

Beautiful start to the day: sun,clear sky and flat seas. Left at 8 to get a decent surface interval for the second dive which is an early slack.

Shared the KPW with Ian.

and now sitting in Burra Sound, waiting for the tide on the Goby.

Believe it or not, the forecast is sh1te.

First dive of the day and the deep dive for my advanced, the Brummer 462 ft 4,500 tons. Landed on a convenient platform at 30m, to carry out the skills. Time then to take a swim along the hull and came across one of the 5” guns. After the usual inquisitive inspection it was time to deploy the SMB and make the accent.

Dinner saw a visit to the Scapa Flow museum to soak up some history then off to dive the F2 249 ft 790 ton WW2 escort vessel. An advantage of this dive is you can also dive the YC21 a barge that sank salvaging the F2. Dropping down the line to the bow we were greeted by a huge cod under the hull. Following the hull along its starboard side leads to a debris field and the line leading to the barge. Marine life is in abundance here but time or the lack of it meant the retreat to the surface. Another great day and a privilege to be in such a location. The week will not be long enough, guess I’ll have to come back.

Daryl with Rob on his back. (BA)

Yup, I get that monday morning feeling too: went to get O2 first thing but forgot to go by the engineers to get my bits and bobs. Got to the boat for a dreigh and damp morning witrh grey skys, drizzle and a moderate NE wind.

Still, the troops were in fine fettle, eager to go so we ticked the brummer off this morning.

Tied to the wall at Lyness at the mo and the day is clearing slightly.

F2 planned this arvo.

All bar two are virgins so broke them in gently..

Dresden am, then Karslruhe pm.

Weather flat calm though grey…..Low preasure system on it’s way though.

The new lot burst out of a couple of transit vans yesterday like a gaggle of eager school kids at the start of the holidays. The energy that people bring with them at the start of the week is very infectious and helps to boy me along when the season is at it’s height and a day off is months away.

Two of the troops are old hands of mine a having been up with a differently group 2 years ago. RS has changed direction, bought a scuba store and sounds as if he is doing really well. It is he who has rallied the troops, organised the trip and is now feeding them till bursting point.

Couple of YDers in the ranks too. Anonymity is assured, till they f#ck up, then all will be revealed!!

Brummer in the morning, karlsruhe pm. Not a ripple on the sea: can’t last!