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To the end of the islesShetland combines the best elements of British diving with the sort of visibility you'd expect of the tropical Pacific. |  | |
Shetland combines the best elements of British diving with the sort of visibility you'd expect of the tropical Pacific. As more liveaboards begin
to explore its complex coastline, Simon Rogerson reports on the wrecks, reefs and caves that await adventurous divers in this northern haven
The name on the chart tells me that the rock above me is called 'Out Stack', but I have unofficially renamed it 'The Dive Site at the End of the Universe'. That may be somewhat of an exaggeration, but this lonely rock is the northernmost speck of land in the British Isles, lying just beyond the lighthouse of Muckle Flugga and the larger island of Unst. At this point, we are already on the same latitude as southern Greenland - keep heading north and there's nothing all the way to the North Pole, and not an awful lot beyond that.
It's a must for any logbook, and we had been encouraged to dive the rock by Bob Anderson, skipper of the MV Halton liveaboard, and a man with a marked distaste for diving anywhere south of 50ºN. This far north the water is chilly but exceptionally clear, and I could take in an expanse of kelp forest as soon as I entered the water. The idea here is to avoid the swirling eddies close to the surface and descend quickly into a 27m-deep gulley. The gulley was a cold-water paradise; soft corals fought for space with anemones, and dogfish drifted lazily along the walls.
In common with many other Shetland dives, there were velvet swimming crabs everywhere, while countless squat lobsters stood guard along fissures in the rock. This is typical Shetland diving, and it is so good that you'll want to stay underwater even when your drysuit leaks - and I speak from personal experience.
Shetland may be geographically isolated, but it is by no means a backwater. The oil and fishery industries have brought in waves of investment, so that even the remotest of harbours has state-of-the-art facilities. The roads are the smoothest I have ever driven on, the airport is a model of efficiency and the colossal pelagic fishing vessels look more like liners than working boats. While the whitefish industry has all but collapsed, the pelagic fisheries are so rich that one tiny island, Whalsay, has at least 20 millionaire fishermen in residence.
No matter what's going on with the pelagic fisheries far out to sea, there's more than enough inshore action to ensure Shetland remains a highly attractive option for divers. We had started our trip by sampling the wreck and cave dives around the capital, Lerwick, and these were good enough to merit the journey on their own. The sedimentary rock of Bressay and Noss islands has some intriguing cavern systems, where smooth surfaces and tightly wedged lumps of wreckage bear testament to the forces that carved into the rock.
At the southern tip of Bressay, we dived the Cave of the Bard and Giant's Legs, both featuring lengthy swims into a narrowing tunnel. After the first ten minutes of steady finning into the 'Bard', I began to worry that the cavern had become a cave (with the complete absence of natural light), but dark as it was, it wasn't a full overhead environment. As the cut became gradually shallower, I could make out dark ripples overhead, and finally surfaced to chat with fellow diver Nick, a dive pro working on the Halton. 'Shall we go back?' 'Well, we can't go much further forward'.
Further to the east, on the southern tip of Noss, we found another cave under a craggy cliff, itself circled by hundreds of gannets. It seemed that the first 5m of water consisted largely of feathers and guano, and then we broke through into dark, clear water. We swam far inside the cave until there was no life at all on the pebble-smooth walls - I couldn't imagine anything living that far into blackness, but then my torch beam flickered across the biggest, ugliest lobster I had ever seen. At least a metre long, its battle-scarred carapace was home to innumerable growths, while its single, unnaturally bulbous claw was held forward in an unmistakable gesture. It was the proverbial troll under the bridge, a cave-bound Caliban gesturing angrily at the divers as they passed overhead one-by-one.
On our return journey, we were harassed by a large grey seal. Seals may be tremendous fun on an open reef or kelp bed, but a large animal darting around inside a confined space can be unnerving. As we made our way towards the greenish light of the cave entrance, my progress was halted repeatedly by the invisible assailant chewing on my fins. I was just grateful it wasn't the abominable lobster.
Outside the cave, the reef walls were decorated with urchins and orange swathes of soft coral. We enjoyed the scenery
briefly before sending up a delayed SMB, then surfaced under a towering amphitheatre of cliffs, with legions of gannets wheeling over us. They seemed to be fascinated by the inflated buoy, and circled us at close range with a curiosity that bordered on the aggressive, many of the goose-sized birds seizing the opportunity to use us for target practice.
Another popular dive close to the port of Lerwick is the wreck of the Lunokhods-1, a Latvian-registered fish factory ship that was driven into the rocks at Bressay and broken in two during a big storm that took place on 9 November 1993. Driven stern-first into a tight inlet or 'geo', the ship broke in two, with the bow section sinking to 42m and the stern lying from near the surface down to 18m. Sheltered to the north by Bressay and the mainland, the site is only exposed to southerlies, and is popular with those who enjoy multi-level dives. The bow section is still fairly intact and it is possible to enter the holds before following the debris trail up the reef slope to the stern, which is still wedged into the inlet. Accessing the engine room is like swimming into another cave, until you look around and see the machinery.
Further north, we were able to explore two shipwrecks lying in beautiful clear water. Lying north of Fetlar in the Bluemull Sound is the wreck of the 'Jane', a Swedish steamer lying on its port side at a depth of around 26m. Patrolled by dogfish and tusk [a local fish], the wreck is partly broken up, but it is still possible to swim inside some of the holds, and the propeller still rises defiantly from the sea bed, decorated with thick growths of coral. The site is also a rewarding spot for finding marine creatures - there were at least four dogfish sitting inside the largest of the holds, with many more lurking in the surrounding merle and kelp. With visibility nudging 20m, you could see crabs and lobsters from a distance, while giant conger peered out from the deeper recesses of the wreckage.
Just a short journey from the Jane is the wreck of the Tonis Chandris, a Greek steamship that ran aground on a submerged reef in January 1940 while taking evasive action to escape a U-boat. The crew of 17 was not willing to unload the ship's cargo of iron ore, and made it clear they just wanted to go home, so it was left to the locals to try to pull the vessel clear of the rocks using a tugboat. With more water pouring in than the pumps could clear, the operation was halted and the stricken vessel broke up and sank during severe weather a week later.
On the day we visited the wreck, the Tonis Chandris presented a tranquil scene, with 20m visibility at slack tide. The wreckage lies on a rocky reef at depths between 18 and 26m, mostly broken-up but with a few key features remaining. Bob had put a buoy on the propeller shaft, and following it gave us a good idea of the wreck's form. A pair of large boilers still stood intact, as was the triple expansion engine, its pipes and valves covered in invertebrate life. Much of the wreckage was covered in marine growth, but you could still make out plenty of features and, as no one had died on the ship, it made an ideal diver's playground.
The journey had brought us to the island of Unst, a naturalist's paradise with a sizeable population of otters, and also the scene of many orca sightings. The cliffs are an avian metropolis of gannets, petrels, kittiwakes, guillemots and (from April to August) puffins. This was to be the site of our most memorable dive, the enigmatic wreck of the British submarine E-49. The sub was on patrol in March 1917, when she was sunk off Baltasound by a mine almost certainly laid by the German U-boat, UC-76. The bow section was completely blown off and there were no survivors.
E-49 is a war grave; much of the wreck has been enveloped in the pure-white sand of Baltasound, but the wreck still sits upright, the upper parts of its structure still rising from the sea bed at a depth of 33m. On the day of our dive, calm seas and a blue sky provided the best possible diving conditions, and visibility was at least 25m as we descended the shot-line towards the sub.
Some of the divers say they could make it out after descending just 8m, others said 12, but there was no mistaking the shape by the time we were halfway down the line. The conning tower had been bent over onto its starboard side, but it too was perfectly intact, its periscope and railings bedecked in Shetland's familiar orange corals. A 'war grave' warning had been issued before the dive, so there was no physical contact with the structure, though the divers used torches to pick out tuskfish and conger living within the protection of the wreck. Back in 1990, a group of visiting divers from England recovered E49's telescopic radio mast, and were subsequently prosecuted and fined.
A second dive gave me the chance to explore beyond the conning tower, which had occupied most of my attention the previous day. About 20m beyond the main wreck site, a small part of the bow section protruded from the sand, its mangy appearance a reminder of the deadly violence of the explosion. I swam back over the sand, watching the divers' bubbles rise, ending as distant ripples on the surface. Juvenile fish swarmed over the main body of the wreck, torch beams briefly illuminating the fish and making them look like tiny lights strewn across the submariners' grave. I looked down on the wreck as I ascended, its detail gradually fading until all I could see was its grey outline against the sand.
Eventually, the wreck of submarine E-49 will finally disappear into the sea bed, but for now it endures as a monument to its dead, at the same time underlining the stark beauty of our northern seas.
GETTING THERE
Shetland is a long-distance proposition, but the transport links make the journey easier than you'd think. Option one is the overnight Aberdeen to Lerwick ferry crossing operated by Northlink Ferries (www.northlinkferries.co.uk), which takes either 12 and a half or 14 and half hours, depending on your day of travel. An adult return costs £63.60, but you'll definitely want a cabin - a four-berth costs £168 per journey. A group of eight on my trip paid a total of £845.20 for their cabins and return journies - that's about £105 each, plus transport costs to Aberdeen. I booked flights from Heathrow to Sumburgh airport via Aberdeen with BA (www.ba.com), which cost £168. The price included taxes, but sadly not taxis, and it's £35 each way to Lerwick and back. BA allowed me a 23kg bag of hold luggage, plus a further 23kg sports allowance under its new diver-friendly rules. None of the hold luggage arrived in Shetland on time, and was sent on by taxi the next day. My advice is to arrive a day prior to your charter in case your luggage also goes AWOL, as is frequently the case on this particular route.
Thanks to Bob Anderson, Cabot Divers of Bristol and the other divers on this charter. MV Halton will be returning to Shetland in July and August 2008 and bookings can be made on 01856 851532, email: bob@mvhalton.co.uk, website: www.mvhalton.co.uk
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