Scapa Flow Trip Report Part 4 - Dresden - Coln September 1, 2006
Posted by Mark Gilmour in : Dive Reports, UK diving, Wreck Diving , trackbackAfter the previous day we decided to give the battleships a rest and go back to the cruisers, so today Thursday was the Dresden and the Coln.
Dresden
“The Dresden lies in 35 metres with her nearest surface point at 18 metres. In some ways she resembles the Koln, but her stern is more intact and gives the diver a better appreciation of that area. She lists at a slighter angle than the Koln and part of her deck has rotted and dropped away to reveal some of the innards. The bridge is intact and the whole superstructure together with the mainmast makes for excellent diving. The bow anchor chains are present, but like the Koln, the gun platforms are empty. Towards the stern the officers’ accommodation section is obvious with its windows and open doorways. Both stern guns still remain as does the stern anchor.”
Ian and I dropped in onto the shot and down to 27m, from here we came up and over the hull and ended up on the wrong side so spent the dive making our way along the hull taking in the life that has attached itself to her since her singing nearly 90 years ago. After about 15 minutes along the hull we came across one of the salvage holes and made our way into that and around finishing up back on the hull at about 24m, after half an hour we decided to start our ascent, an uneventful deco had us back on the surface at 52 minutes. Max depth 33m. Before arriving in the flow this time around we had planned to investigate a ladder and hatch that we found the previous year, a combination of the vis, weather and the incident the day before binned that for us. It just means that there is something else to try when we go back in a couple of years. 
The Koln
“The Koeln was built to replace its predecessor which was sunk at the Battle of Heligoland Bight in August 1914. She joined the German navy in early 1918, but apart from a little scouting saw no action. By the time of the Scapa internment, the Koeln was in bad repair and her slow speed held up the Fleet. The boat was scuttled at about 14.00 on 21st June 1919″
This was a good dive, last year I lost Ian on this one and we ended up not doing this one properly, this year he decided not to bother and so I went in with Steve Swe had more of a decent dive on her. We descended to where the shot was tied off towards the bow at about 22m. We dropped off the side of the hull over the deck down to the seabed at 35m and made our way along the mast, which was very impressive. It was still quite dark and as we came back along the mast towards the ship we did enter through the deck at one point, not enough to cause any distress but enough so to be wary of the overhead environment. We continued on to the bow passing Garf and Ian coming the other way, looks like they had had a hull swim to that point. We swam along the thin edge of the bow, I imagined what an impressive sight it would be upright in the water. We then turned and made our way over the hull and along the port side for a while until we had enough. We bagged up uneventfully making the surface at 62 minutes.
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