Coln, F2 & Barge, Scapa Flow August 2005 August 20, 2005
Posted by Mark Gilmour in : Dive Reports, UK diving, Wreck Diving , trackbackFriday 12th August 2005.
Dive 1 Coln Max Depth 35.1m Run time 44mins.
This was probably the least successful of Ian and mine dives together during the week. It didn’t start well when I hadn’t switched on my valves and then forgot to attach the wing inflator before I had kitted up. A bit of faffing and it was sorted then in we dropped. As we descended again on perfect slack, things started to feel better, I relaxed after being anxious about not getting things right before we went in. The bulk of the wreck on it’s starboard side came into view and I paused for a second to compose as this was to be last big boat of the week and took it all in. We dropped over the side of the ship and down along the bridge and attack conning tower and past the midships gun. We dropped underneath the tower and enjoyed a very nice swimthrough. At this point I noted another entry into a decent sized swimthrough which doubled back along the base of the control bridge and back around. I checked back to Ian and he was behind me so I went in, unfortunately he wasn’t looking at me when I went in and he carried on along the side towards the bow. When I came out of the other side of the tower I met up with 2 other divers from another boat and also Beanie and Lisa. I noticed at this point the Ian had not followed me through and so went back over the tower to find him. I continued along towards the bow as had been our plan but didn’t catch up with him. I then doubled back and quizzed Beanie, Lisa and then Blanaid and Juz as I passed them going back towards the bridge. After reaching the bridge and the midships gun I had still not found Ian so I started to ascend to the top of the wreck to send up my bag and start the ascent. On my way up the decking I noticed the stray rope from old shots, so I thought to myself, best stay away from that as it would be just peachy to get caught up as I am now on my tod. 
As the thought passed through my mind the rope caught underneath my stage. Oh well, untangled it from the rope and continued up. As I came up over the side railing I saw Ian who had just sent up his bag, so we met up and continued along the top of the wreck towards the stern section.
We saw the stern guns albeit from the upper section of the wreck. At 33minutes we began our ascent, having stayed within no deco limits. We made a slow and steady ascent pretty much adhering to our deco plan, switching to 50%.
Even though the dive didn’t exactly go to plan, it was still a really good one. The Coln was a beautiful wreck with large shoals of little sardine sized fish, (I am told they weren’t sardine but not sure what they are).
Gotta go back and do this one properly.
Dive 2 The F2 & Barge followed by a gentle pootle on the seabed looking for bottles and feisty crabs. Max Depth 18m, Run time, 71 min
Our last dive, can you believe it, if you have got this far in the dive report then you are thinking thank goodness, congratulations though on getting this far, you deserve a green blob. 
To claim you have to green me!! 
The plan for this one was drop onto the barge, have a mooch around this one, checking out the gun salvaged from F2 and then make our way over to F2 to have a look at the rest of it.
Juz sorting out our reminders for Week 2
Lisa in the barge.
So in we went, the barge was a little small for 12 divers to descend on at once, so Ian and I hung back and once everyone had moved onto the F2 had a look around on our own. We had a good luck inside, attempting to get into the back of the boat but it turned out to be a little tighter than we expected. Back onto the deck we exited over to the port side and made our way to the bow and then off to F2 stopping on the way to examine the winch mechanism that lay between the two wrecks.
We reached the carnage that is the rear of the F2 which had been blown apart by the salvage crews. We headed out along the stern section and then back along to the intact bow. We came up underneath the bow that was elevated from the surface and returned back to the main gun sat on the deck.
Here we went inside and made our way underneath the gun and turret and popped out behind the swivel turret of the gun. The oval window to get out was a little tight as we were carrying our stages to run em down. I hoicked the stage up and tucked the camera in and wriggled out.
Here we met up with Matt, Adam, Caroline & Lou
Caroline. 
Adam.
After spending 45 minutes on the wrecks we bagged off and drifted along the seabed hunting for more bottles and taking a couple of shots of the feisty crabs that we expected to find after the previous days bottle run when I didn’t have the camera with me.
We changed to our stages to drain them down and enjoy the beauties of 50%. At 65 minutes mine was getting low, OK in fact it had run out so I switched back to my main rig. I turned to Ian and dangled my stage reg in front of him giving him an appropriate signal to tell him I had finished it. At this point a sense of realisation came across his face as he noted that his was probably running low. At the point where he was going purple he managed to unclip his main reg and stuck in his mouth. I had swapped to my backup just in case I needed to donate, but found it hard not to giggle at his misfortune… frankly if he……………..
At this point we decided we had collected enough pictures and bottles and made our ascent, shame we didn’t pick up any scallops as the restaurant we had booked for the evening had run out for their starters!!!
And that was it, our dives were complete. I was no longer a Scapa Virgin.
Which was my favourite, probably Kronprinz Wilhelm or Billy 38 as it became known as. Just because of those guns… but I also really enjoyed Brummer and Doyle, and also Tabarka, F2, Karlsruhe…………………….
Then it was on to Friday night………
It truly was a great week of diving for me. Having only started diving 18 months ago and as you can see from some of the pics Lou has posted in this thread, learned a lot over a relatively short space of time, at that time I couldn’t have envisaged doing this trip and getting as much out of it as I did. I would like to thank all that were on the trip as it was a really really good group of people and every single person contributed to making it so. Ian (airassisted) you’re a star for getting this sorted. Thanks M8
One more piccy, MV Invincible, a really decent Scapa Liveaboard, skippered by the superb team of Ian and Fiona, I really can’t recommend them enough.
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