Diving Shetland - August 2013

he Shetland Isles are renowned for their great diving, superb visibility underwater, large wrecks and scenic reefs. We spent a week aboard the MV Valkyrie, owned by Hazel and Helen and crewed by Rob which offers a full-board service and is equipped with a compressor and enough tanks of O2 and helium for air, nitrox and Trimix fills (232bar) and access to the many dive sites around the Islands. There were 10 divers aboard the boat (all DL or above) diving on twinsets and stages and were either advanced deco procedures (ADP) or Trimix trained. We were lucky to be able to set our own itinerary for the week as a few of us knew Hazel, the skipper, from previous trips to Shetland and the Orkney isles. We chose a couple of reefs and a handful of wrecks in the depth range 20-44 m. We did two dives a day and, since most dive sites were only a short trip from our moorings, each day started with a quiet breakfast before kitting up and getting in for a 10:00-11:00 am dive. We had a 3-4 hr. surface interval (including lunch and plenty if 'deco cake', cake of course does not aid decompression or off gassing but does taste good!) and then an afternoon dive at around 3:00-4:00 pm. Being at around 60 degrees N we had good light until around 8:30pm.

The reefs (we dived Score Head and Grutwick Wall) were reminiscent of those in St Abbs or the Farne Isles with vertical walls of rock and boulders. On the dives it was a case of 'pick your depth' (the bottom was at 65 m) and enjoy the view. There were squat lobsters, ling, lots of squishy stuff and lovely vis. In the deeper sections the sandy bottom was covered in scallops and rays whereas the shallower sections <30 m depth were home to things that cling to rocks in the currents.

The wreck of the G'wladmena (http://www.divernet.com/Wrecks/wreck_tours/159461/wreck_tour_17_the_gwladmena.html) was a Welsh coal transporter who sank after a collision with another ship and sank almost

The Bow of the G'wladmena

intact and upright at a depth of 38m. She's a pretty dive covered in anemone, dead mens' fingers and crustaceans and teaming with shoals of little fish. She has an intact forecastle and bow which makes a great swim-through and towards the mid-section and the stern are some nice places to look for lobsters, conger eels and crabs. The compound engine lies in the superstructure amidships and the two massive boilers are there to explore. This was the first wreck we dived in the week and was a perfect introduction to what to expect of the Shetland wrecks, 15-20 m visibility and abundant with life.

The Bow of the Lunakhods-1

The Klondykers were huge Russian ships that served as floating processing plants for the Russian North Sea fishing fleet which operated in the 1980's out of the Shetlands. Now two of these huge vessels, the Lunakhods-1 (http://www.divemagazine.co.uk/travel/diving-destinations/uk-diving/diving-destinations/scotland/2764-lunokhods-1) and the Pionersk now lie at 42 m and 20 m, respectively. These ships really are vast and offer plenty of opportunities for exploration inside and out.  We had between 15 and 20 m vis on these dives (although, being shallower, the Pionersk was a little more silty). Particularly on the Linakhods-1,  If you swim off the bows and look back you get an amazing view if the whole bow, bridge and forward holds. The stern of the Lunakhods-1 rests on a 20 m shelf above the bow section so we spent our dive on the bow section.

Inside the Pionersk

The Pionersk is broken into 30-40 m sections along her length which gave us access to her interior, where we could find the engines, processing plants, fish holds and accommodation.

Octopus on Fraoch Ban

The MFV Fraoch Ban was a fishing trawler which sank close to the island of Noss. She lies in 32 m of water listing to port. She is mostly intact, and supports a lot of  life including soft corals, anemones, octopus and ling. We watched an octopus walk all the way from the sea bed up to the top of the superstructure over the netting and winches. On the sea bed surrounding the wreck are hundreds (literally) of plaice who dance playfully on the sand as you approach.

The E49 Seen from the shot at 21M

The E49 was a British E-class submarine which hit a mine just after leaving port towards the end of WWI. She sank with all hands (32 crew) and is now a protected wreck (as a war grave) lying in 42 m. With visibility of over 30 m, this is a tremendous dive with the upper decks, conning tower and various pipes, valves portholes and hatches still intact. The conning tower is made of brass and leans to starboard and still has all the hand-rails, periscope (and optics) and is teaming with life. The bow section, which was blown off by the mine, lies 10 m away from the rest of the superstructure and has winching gear, and the forward  loading hatch for the torpedoes, 10 of which still lie within the wreck.

Pressure Vessel (Part of the engine) on the
SS Glenisla

The SS Glenisla, a 1423 ton steamer,  was the highlight of the trip (so much so, that we dived on her twice). She was a huge steam ship who collided with her sister ship (the SS Glenelg) while in a convoy and lies at  45 m on a shale sea bed. She is considered one of the best diver sites of her type in the UK. Although quite dark, the visibility was 20 m or so.  She was wire swept (as she lies in a busy shipping channel) which removed all of the upper decks and superstructure, however now the entire lower decks are accessible including the holds, engine rooms, engineers workshop and there's loads to see. Imagine an early 20th century steam ship with the lid taken off, and you've got the Glenisla. A fantastic dive and worth a few tanks of Trimix and some substantial time on decompression stops to see her all. In total we spend a glorious 1hr and 20min on this wreck and enjoyed every second!

Having now dived just a few of the reefs and wrecks the Shetlands have to offer I can thoroughly recommend it as a destination for some exciting and adventurous diving. Our itinerary would  not be for less experienced divers (all dives were beyond the depth range for Ocean Divers and some beyond that of the experienced Sports Diver) and the dives we did would be hard to do properly without undertaking decompression stops or using nitrox mixes to lengthen bottom times and shorten decompression. I dived with a guy I'd not met until Saturday morning (Adrian, from Exeter SAC) who features in my videos from the week (to follow). We did most of our dives on run-times (most of the dives were square profile) with gas-switching computers as a backup.

Of course, there are plenty of other sites that we could have dived on the islands at depths between 10-30 m, so maybe I'll dive them next time I go.  If you are thinking of going to the Shetlands diving, make sure you take a camera, the past week has been the best UK diving I have ever done and I'll not forget it.

Here are some more photos from the week (U/W shot on GoPro): http://www.sound-board.com/photos/Shetlands_2013/

A Short Video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZP8rCPuAYMA - more videos (one of each wreck) will be uploaded once I've finished editing them!

James