Diving Scapa Flow (Part1) - getting there
Diving Scapa (Part1) - getting there
Almost any diver who loved wrecks should (if they don't already) consider Scapa Flow as a 'must do' destination. The sucken German Imperial fleet is the main attraction but given the Flows use in both World wars as a deep water anchorage for the British there are plenty of other things too. I've been lucky enough now to visit Scapa Flow on a few occasions but only now blogging about my last trip.
I'll write various articles on some of the German capital ships I dived, but the first blog is about the process of actually getting to Orkney. Obviously the first issue is its a bloody long way from anywhere. The second is there are a limited number of ways to get there, especially if you want to take about 50Kg of dive kit. Essentially ferries from Aberdeen which get you there around midnight or the ferry from the very tippy-top of Scotland which takes around 90 minutes and runs 3 times a day. Either way you first need to deal with the lazy, process obsessed, Scottish communists running the Northlink ferry service.
Sticking in the letter of the law and terms of carridge you are supposed to both declare all your scuba cylinders as dangerous goods and only carry air or oxygen. Utterly ridiculous on a number of levels, I have a lot of tanks sitting full in my garage and in no way are they dangerous, the are tested every 2.5 years and are looked after. For instance a tank of volitile explosive liquid would be considerably riskier and thats what is used to transport them (don't even get me started on massive bricks of an element that explodes in air (e-cars) ). So having satisfied that requirement, I am treated like a pariah and sent to park in my own lane but then will join the rest of the cars on the ferry and hilariously see all the other divers who just didnt bother to declare and put a blanket over their tanks.
So assuming you submit your paperwork and do it properly instead of just lying and hiding your dive kit, the next problem is you can only legally carry air and oxygen. Now at this point I give up. Divers must contribute to the Orkadian economy and Scapa is known as a world wide diving destination so naturally the Scottish make it as hard and unpleasant as possible for people. Divers generally will have nitrox and/or trimix in their tanks. Certainly as a rebreather diver, I have a trimix diluant, a trimix bailout for deep bailouts and a rich nitrox mix for bailout decompression. Simpliest here is just to stick something on the tanks that says 'air' in the unlikely event they check.
So paperwork submitted, lying about what gas I'm carrying and last to board the ferry. Trip starts with me being angry but this soon fades as the islands of Orkney approach and I know I'm going diving.