Scapa Flow dive notes July 2013

[Hickdive]

Last time I did a full week liveaboard in Scapa I think I paid £350 for six days of self-catering diving inc. air but that was a couple of years ago and prices have risen dramatically.

Don't make the mistake of travelling Aberdeen - Kirkwall. You arrive in Kirkwall late at night and then have to transfer yourself and your kit to Scrabster and either load it on the boat then or get up early and run around daft doing it first thing in the morning, just before you go diving.

Travel Scrabster - Stromness instead, take the traditional lunchtime Saturday sailing, arrive early afternoon, load the boat, sort yourself out and have the rest of the day/evening to relax and a good night's sleep before starting diving on Sunday morning. Go via Aberdeen and Kirkwall and you'll either need to bring transport with you or arrange it to get from Kirkwall to Stromness. Go via Scrabster direct to Stromness and you load your kit onto trolleys provided specially by the ferry company for divers and cross as foot passengers, saving the cost of taking a car on the ferry.

Alternatively, if you want to take a car to explore the island, go via the Gills Bay to St Margaret's Hope ferry, it's cheaper and quicker than the Scrabster - Stromness if you're taking a car.

Finally, if you're travelling Scrabster - Stromness the ferry staff are used to divers and their equipment and, if you're taking cylinders, you're supposed to fill in a DGN. In practice they turn a blind eye. However, if you're travelling Aberdeen - Kirkwall then they aren't so accommodating and you will have to comply with ALL the instructions in respect of DGN, right down to having a printed copy to hand to the security staff as you drive aboard. The Gills Bay ferry just asks you to phone them the day before to let them know you'll have cylinders.

If you're driving from the south of England and need to split the journey you're best stopping off in the central belt of Scotland. Some people, bizarrely, spend 12 hours driving the length of the UK and overnight in Scrabster or Thurso, then spend half a day there kicking their heels waiting for the lunchtime sailing. Six hours to Glasgow or Edinburgh from darkest Englandshire, overnight stop, then five hours to Scrabster for the lunchtime sailing without having to get up at silly o'clock.

I would have been in Oran Mor last night but the for fact I'm working today. A great venue.

 

[johnohuk]

10 hours was from West London to Scrabster. clr traffic all the way...M40/M42/M6/...A9

We got to Scabster for 4-5pm on Friday afternoon, checked in at the Ferry Inn £35 B&B and then went straight to the bar for the night... I need a few drinks to sleep through the snoring of my fellow travellers.. Ferry was 8.45am Saturday morning, which meant we had the afternoon in Stromness to do some sightseeing, load up boat and get our bearings.. Diving 6 days from Sunday onwards..

Cost for 6 days Diving/land based accommodation/ferry crossing and Ferry Inn = £570, then £100 for Nitrox for the week, £220 for diesel (rtn) and then food/drink/souvenirs.. another 200-300 ! Worth every penny..

We dived with Dive Cellar

Dive Scapa Flow - scapa flow, dive scapa flow, scapa scuba diving

 

[Tjack]

Only 10 hours, piece of cake. Living in the American west that seems like it's just around the corner to me.

There must be decent diving all around the UK? What are some other good spots?

 

[johnohuk]

I will never moan again about driving! Nearest coast for us would be Portsmouth at 1hr.. 3-4hrs is the max i would do for a days diving and within that range there are lots of choices for diving... this map gives u an idea of the spread of the wrecks...it looks a little thin but u get the idea..

UK Diving Wrecks

 

[Hickdive]

Only 10 hours, piece of cake. Living in the American west that seems like it's just around the corner to me.

Don't equate 10 hours driving through the American west with driving 10 hours in the UK.

Country road US style:



Country road UK style:



That's the A9 (one of the good bits too) the road you need to drive from Perth to Scrabster. The traffic in the picture above will be doing 40-50 mph with virtually no opportunities for passing.

Here's one of the poorer bits of the same road;



Get stuck behind a truck here and you'll be lucky to be doing 20 mph.

 

[FionaH]

Don't equate 10 hours driving through the American west with driving 10 hours in the UK.



Country road UK style:

View attachment 163200

That's the A9 (one of the good bits too) the road you need to drive from Perth to Scrabster. The traffic in the picture above will be doing 40-50 mph with virtually no opportunities for passing.

Here's one of the poorer bits of the same road;

View attachment 163201

Get stuck behind a truck here and you'll be lucky to be doing 20 mph.

The A9's no too bad once you get to ken it - Groats - Falkirk/Edinburgh usually takes a bit under 5 hours, as long as there's not too many camper vans in convoy, though what effect the average speed cameras they're about to put the whole way between Perth and Dunblane will have remains to be seen. The snowgates can close at short notice in the winter though.
I'd disagree about the ferries, Aberdeen -Kirkwall is a good route for some - it does get in at the back of 11, but it's only 15 miles away - and despite what some of the skippers say, there is nothing to be gained by leaving at 8am on Sunday morning, the main wrecks are almost non-tidal and 10:30 is much nicer ( the karin always has ropes off after 10 at the weekend) so plenty of time to sort out kit, and it takes nearly an hour to get to the sites anyway. Far too many divers never get out of Stromness, whereas a car means way more freedom to explore the beaches/archeology/tourist stuff/indian restaurant in Kirkwall once tied up. On the Pentalina, the car only costs around £60 return - and they don't have too many complicated rules about checking in,and it's a nicer crossing - though I'm possibly a bit biased since I can see it coming in from the house, and leave once it's level with stroma

 

[Hickdive]

Believe me, the Indian restaurant in Kirkwall is not worth travelling to under any circumstances!

 

[Tjack]

Kirkwall Hotel had some good food, the dining room is like a time warp, lots of character.

We stumbled across Mother India in Glasgow, now that was some fine Tikka Masala.

My next dive trip will be 15 hours drive to Santa Barbara, California. All scenic roads, Grand Canyon along the way, just hope not to run into a fleet of Winnebagos ie giant camper vans.

Southern California has some great cold water diving. The SoCal liveaboards have great food. Nice thing about driving is you can haul a ton of gear.

 

[clownfishsydney]

My wife and I just returned from a 5.5 week holiday in UK and Europe. The first part was a week in Scapa Flow. Took us 24 hours flying to Glasgow, 2.5 days driving (of course not in a direct line with lots of sightseeing) to Inverness and a three hour train trip to Thurso/Scrabster and then the ferry from there.

We dived with Radiant Queen, fantastic service, possibly the best I have had in almost 3,500 dives. Cost was very reasonable as well. We were booked in as part of a Scottish BSAC club group.

The water temperature in the second week of August was 11C, not too bad. We were prepared for it to be a bit colder, so were toasty warm with the drysuits and other gear we dragged all the way from home.

The visibility ranged from 3 metres up to 15 metres on the German wrecks and better on the one blockship we did. The German wrecks are generally huge, depths from 42 m to 28 m max. We had little current on the wrecks. I had thought that the diving might have been challenging, but it was a lot easier than I expected (note my experience as above). The novel (for us) idea of descending a shotline and then ascending your own shotline was easily mastered (most wrecks we actually ascended the fixed shotline). We dived with 15 litre and pony of 50% (me) and my wife a 121 litre. We did bottom times as long as the twin tank divers. See http://www.michaelmcfadyenscuba.info/profiles/dive-profiles-jul-aug-2013.pdf for brief descriptions of each dive as well as profiles. We also did four dives out of Swanage in southern England towards the end of the holiday, three were excellent wrecks.

All in all, an excellent week's diving.

 

[Tom Winters]

Damn that sounds like a fun dive trip. If only the UK would lift the travel ban on Michael Savage, I'd be bumping something like that way up the list.