Mark’s Diving Journal

SMS Dresden, Doyle - Scapa Flow 10/08/05 August 18, 2005

Posted by Mark Gilmour in : Dive Reports, UK diving, Wreck Diving , trackback

Wednesday 10th AugustDive 1 SMS Dresden Max Depth 33m Run time 55min

The first of the light cruisers for us was the Dresden, the name ship for this class of world war 1 german cruiser. Skipper informed us that the shot was on the bow and so in we went. At 6m on our “bubble check” Ian pointed to his suit inflator which had mysteriously come off!! (it was there when we did our buddy check!! ) So we spent a minute or so sorting that out whilst slowly dropping to 9m. This made up for when Ian had to fix my fin strap at 12m on the way down the shot onto the Gobernador Bories.

We left the shot at about 22m and dropped over the side of the Dresden towards the base of the bow. Here we found a little swimthrough that went from the deck through the bow, at which point we shifted around the bow, paying a visit to the conger that had made a home under one of the plates on the seabed. We then wandered back to midships along the sea bed, poking in and out of the various bits of the wreckage of the deck. Of particular interest to me was the ladder section that ran off horizontally from the deck into the wreck which when shining the torch into gave a clear indication to the size of this class of battle cruiser, as the stairs went from one deck through to the other.

Moving further up the wreck we got up to the upper railing and along the starboard side . Here the salvage blast holes had left a large corridor exposed where the holes in the side armour where portholes once were created cylindrical shafts of light that permeated the gloom.

By the time we had reached here though we had reached our bottom time and even though we were running nitrox and had not been as deep as we had planned, we did n;t have the time to go off exploring down these corridors. So Ian sent up the SMB and we completed our stops finishing jut shy of the hour mark.

Once back on board we were treated to a display from a couple of basking sharks who had arrived in Burra sound. Ian, Adam and Matt, were suited up so jumped in with their SRDs. We lost sight of the larger of the two baskers and then she surfaced right next to Ian and Adam. A fantastic sight, shame that neither of them took the camera in with them.

Dive 2 Doyle, Max Depth 14.6m 26 minutes.

Another blockship so again subject to the same tide pattern as before, In we went down we went and into the wreck again. Ian managed to find another tight fitting hole for us to get in to, interestingly enough also shaped like a toblerone. As we made our way further in the wreck opened up and all the lattice work structure of the decks became visible meaning we could weave in and out of the various deck layers investigating the life that was in there. Saw a couple of little scorpion fish that insisted on evading the camera.

Once again our bottom time was limited by the tide turning and so on 20 minutes we exited the wreck by the convieniently placed holes in the side of the hull lattice work and I was given SMB duty. I fired the bag careful to note that the reel was running freely and we ascended as a four, Ian, Beanie, Lisa and myself.