Scapa Trip Report - Final Instalment - Koenig, F2 & Barge & the Night out! September 1, 2006
Posted by Mark Gilmour in : Dive Reports, UK diving, Wreck Diving , trackbackOur final day of diving, it had been an eventful week. For our final days diving we were going to attempt the namesake of the Konig Class battleships and finish our diving exhausting our gas supplies on the F2 & barge as we did last year.
Ian was not feeling up to this one, still suffering a bit with a dicky stomach. So again it was Steve and I for this one. The shot was supposed to be resting on the upturned hull with begins at about 18m. It wasn’t, at 38m I was a bit suspicious, turns out that the shot was right inside one of the blast holes from the salvage or possibly alongside on the holes that rips along the hull to the seabed. Steve swam off slightly from the shot and ended up swimming right inside, I followed gingerly keeping an eye on the shot and the very faint bit of green above me. I signalled Steve that we had gone inside and so we made our way out of the wreck and onto the hull, faced with another hull dive in very little vis we decided to bin it, I think looking back I was still a bit spooked by Garf and John’s experience on Markgraf two days previous.
Steve sent up a bag and we made a nice steady ascent. Max depth 38m Dive time 38minutes.
And so onto our final dive of the week, we had designated this one at the beginning of the week, F2 and Barge. This again was a great dive although the vis was limited there was ambient light which allowed me to take a couple of fun pictures. We made our way down the shot and onto the barge first, this is where one of the guns from the salvage efforts on the F2 sits in the hold of the barge. We had a good look around and then headed off the stern to the rope that leads to the F2. For future reference when you get to the mangled wreckage of the F2, the bow is to the right. I knew this but doubted it as I led off and headed towards the bow but on not finding it decided it must be the other way. After we ran out of wreckage at the stern section we headed back and found the bow this time. After taking a look at the gun and the breach inside. We drifted off and had a bit of a wander around looking for bottles and stuff.
70 minutes in we decided that that was enough and started our ascent. We had survived another week in the flow, and it had been a very different experience from the previous year. No less enjoyable but certainly different. I gained a lot from the diving, some new experiences for me in very dark, low vis situations. I am happy to say that on the whole the decisions I made were good decisions. I didn’t push myself too far.
As is customary after the diving is done the partying begins. We had all booked into the Royal along with those from the bounteous sea. We had a very good meal with lots of banter, mostly about the ducks and the Markgraf. It was refreshing to be able to joke about that incident as there had not been any more serious consequences other than precautionary treatment for John. After the meal we returned to the bar area to continue playing pool. It was a very good night, and there were a few sore heads in the morning, which must have made for a very very interesting drive home.
Comments»
Hello Mark
Very interesting reading your experiences, not sure if I’ll ever get to that level of confidence.
Keep up the journals, so we can enjoy the trip too
Tony
Tony
Thanks for the comment, Scapa is truly a fantastic wreck diving destination. What I learned from the trip this year compared to last year is that it can throw up all different types of experiences. I am thoroughly looking forward to returning in a couple of years time.
Your comment reminds me I need to post my trip report from our trip down to Porthkerris the week after Scapa.
Mark