TV Team
The novelty this week was a TV crew from the French TV channel france3, magazine thalassa who were here to film the team from France, or more specifically Caen Plongee.
How did it start? From which acorn did this oak grow?
Well, in many ways it is a story of coincidences and long harboured ideas coming to fruition. YM and SD were with me as a late booking last Oct 05. These two are big on the Normandy wrecks having appeared in Wreck Detectives on Channel 4 after having written a couple of books, one of which was about Le Courbet, a dreadnought. Now their Dreadnought was a bit of rusty metal about 3m proud of the seabed in murky Channel waters (or Le Manche as it would have been called if the French sailors of yore had been braver) so they decided to come to Scapa to dive a proper Dreadnought in decent nic in conditions that were at least conducive for diving. Now one of their other halves works in the TV office and told RG about her man’s trip aboard the tip top Halton in Sunny Scapa over a coffee one morning, a bit of a coincidence as he had archive footage from French diver of old who had filmed in the 70s (or maybe 80s) in Scapa. He had wanted to come to Scapa to do a follow up but had always had the story on a backburner. Having been inducted into the Gonzo school of diving the two intrepid plongers were ready to return, TV team in tow. The circle had been squared.
They were then lucky enough to hire one of France’s top underwater camera men, RH of Label Bleu Production (this may not be the best link but you try narrowing down an internet search for “Blue Label Productions”).
He was flown in by private plane at great expense..
along with a ton of kit and lighting equipment. To be truthful, the camera kit weighed the best part of 50kg and took 2 men to lift it in and out of the water.
So here was my strategy:
I am a big believer in Scapa. I genuinely believe that the wrecks here are some of the best in the world. I believe that Orkney is an absolutely stunning place and I think that the level of interest here just expands exponentially the deeper you dig so given any chance to show the place off and I try to rise to the challenge. The prognosis was not good. vis had been poor without showing any sign of a reprieve whilst the forecast was good for the first few days only. If we did not hit the ground running on the sunday morning then our only opportunity could be lost.
The first dive on the Karlsruhe was a sunday morning special: everything was new to everybody so things went to pot. The troops got a decent dive but at the expense of any decent footage. By the afternoon, lessons had been learned, the dive was more productive and it felt like we were up and running. The last job of the day was to set things up on the Brummer in readiness for the next day.
There was wind on the Monday morning which lasted longer into the day than forecast with the consequence the last dive was too early (we sat at Lyness pier waiting for the wind to drop) and we made Longhope to the best evening of the week. Not a breath of wind and the locals out waterskiing.
The vis was having an effect: AB, when holding the lights, couldn’t see RH (the cameraman) and was therefore not able to be directed to light the relevant areas. The lights failed on one dive but otherwise performed well all week.
We left Longhope early on the Tues morning to catch some of the calm spell, getting the Brummer in again. As we left site, waves started to form so by mid afternoon the F2 was left as the only comfortable option. Burray seemed a good idea to avoid the discomfort of a strong (gale force) SE overnight and by the time we got to the pier the wind must have been touching 40 knots.
Wednesday and thursday both had the kind of wind that was enough to hamper operations but not to bin things completely. They continued to try and get decent footage of a battleship but these are big wrecks in their own right so not sure how successful how things went.
Friday summed up the week: an early start to catch the Barrie, which was then binned due to the motion in Hoxa Sound, and a flat calm Burra Sound and the Tabarka.
The TV guys seemed pleased at the end of the week: the surface guys had footage that was anything but dull whilst the RH had enough underwater stuff for the programme. The week had been hard work but the troops seemed to have enjoyed themselves.
I suppose I will have to wait until sept for the final verdict: aired on French TV.
