It had been a while since I had indulged in a typical club diving expedition. Not the usual regular site stuff, but the kind of thing where you take the RIB somewhere a little further afield and explore a bit.
First thing I needed was a typical club boat, and for that Humber leant me what happens to actually be the typical club boat, a 5.8 metre Destroyer. The ensemble was completed with a 90 horsepower Honda 4 stroke outboard, a Star M55DSC radio and Lowrance LMS240 combined Echo Sounder/GPS/Chart Plotter with the latest Navionics digital chart cartridges.
As for where to go, I had a longstanding ambition to try some of the sites further out from Mull. Up the Sound and round the corner, across to Coll and stuff like that. The sort of locations you wonder about while on a more regular trip to the area, when having dived the Hispania and the Rondo, you start to contemplate the lure of what could be just a little further away and round the corner. Not exploring in the real sense, but nevertheless all diving new to me and the friends joining me for the trip.
I also had an invitation from the Caithness Diving Club to come and sample some of their hardly dived wrecks and rocks. Part of the country that everyone drives through on their way to catch the ferry for Scapa Flow, but in their pilgrimage to the Orkneys barely anyone stops to dive.
So my plan grew from there, a few days based at Lochaline, diving the Sound of Mull and further afield, then on to Thurso and Caithness for a few days at the far north-east tip of Scotland. Different, adventurous, and all well within the capability of the average diving club.
Heading up the Sound of Mull at 25 knots we are already venturing beyond my initially cautious first day plans.
Only the previous evening we had been eaten alive by midges while cutting holes in the Humber's shiny blue console to fit the instruments. With a new and unfamiliar boat I had intended a shakedown day, sticking to local sites while making sure everything worked, but discussing the weather outlook with Phil Robertson of the Lochaline Dive Centre it now looked as if we would only have a couple of calm days before it got decidedly unpleasant.
Plans were revised to take advantage of the weather while it lasted. Provided we were happy with the boat on the run up the Sound, we would now be heading further afield
The boat handles like a dream and everything works, so we decide to push on. Unsure of how economical the engine will be, I have no idea of just what safe range we can get from a 90 litre tank. I had ambitions to dive the wreck of the Tapti, a 4,411 ton steamship wrecked at the south end of Coll in 1951, but checking the fuel it now looks uncertain whether one tank will be enough to get there and back. We consider filling up at Tobermory, but the fuel station is closed for Sunday afternoon. An alternate plan is needed.
Prepared for ad-hoc dive planning I pull the Argyll Shipwrecks book from my dry bag and began comparing wreck positions to the digital chart. We settle on the Aurania, an 8,499 ton liner converted to troopship, torpedoed and wrecked at Caliach point on the west of Mull. On pretty much the same route, but a good 10 miles closer than the Tapti.
None of us has dived the Aurania before. All we have are the plan and numbers in the guide book. With a well broken wreck on a rocky seabed this brings a certain amount of cautious pessimism to my wreck finding ambitions.
We certainly get some beautiful traces on the echo sunder. But are they wreckage or rocks? The thing that clinches it is the chart plotter. Being able to see our exact position on a detailed chart and compare that to the diagram in the guide book decides which group of echoes we would dive.
Success. I land on wreckage and claw my way up-current and offshore, about 2 knots running along the coast. We soon find the bows. First one enormous winch then another, anchors and chain spread in-between, pollack holding station above. Then a zigzag drift back to the boilers and debris from the engine. What isn't covered in fine red kelp is home to some impressively sized anemones and dead men's fingers. Ballan and cuckoo wrasse play tag as we duck in and out of back eddies to retrace our route.
Next day we are again heading for the south end of Coll and the Tapti with a fresh tank of fuel. This time with a couple of Jerry cans just in case. Keeping the speed down to 20 knots the Honda is much more economical. 35 nautical miles from Lochaline and 5/8 of the main tank remains on the gauge.
Phil had given us some numbers. Armed with these, the plan in Argyll Shipwrecks, and the amazing plotter display we soon have a good echo. Our shot lands just aft of the boilers.
Protruding wreckage is covered in healthy yellow dead men's fingers and small anemones. The wreck has collapsed to starboard, bows out to sea, leaving the keel against the rocks and the deck laid out flat on the sand. It is easy to navigate past the remains of the superstructure and mast to the bow. Further into the current the bow is home to a thick colony of plumose anemones.
Our second dive is ad-hoc planning again. We are already getting casually accustomed to the convenience of the chart plotter. I leaf through the guide book and notice the wreck of the Arnold is almost next door, move the cursor to the appropriate point on the chart, then drop a shot on a likely looking echo.
We turn out to have just missed the rudder post and a section of keel. I follow the shaft forward to the engine and boilers. There is less wreckage than the Tapti and it fizzles out somewhere in the middle of the forward holds. The bow section must be somewhere nearby, but I don't have time to find it.
Driving back I casually follow my nose into the Sound of Mull. The Lowrance is on split screen between echo and chart. I can hug the shore line as close as I like with plenty of warning when to turn out to avoid shallow reefs. The echo tracks beautifully, even at 20 knots.
Nearing Lochaline we cross the wreck of the Shuna, a yellow buoy marking the superstructure. I put the Humber into a tight circle over the wreck, staying on the plane. The Lowrance still has a good echo, wreck rising 8 metres from a 30 metre seabed. I am impressed.
Over the next few days the weather deteriorates. Diving is restricted to sheltered sites in the Sound of Mull. We dive some of the standard wrecks and also have a go at some of the acclaimed but less dived walls.
The tank of petrol from the Tapti trip lasts the next morning to the Shuna and on to the pier at Tobermory where we fill up. We just make it in burning vapour without having to crack the jerry cans. Cruising at 20 knots the Humber and Honda have managed 85 miles plus loitering on location from 90 litres of petrol, carrying 5 divers, my rebreather and 8 cylinders.
With a rougher sea, rain and spray, some weaknesses in the boat and equipment start to show up. Bouncing on a wave, heavy kit stowed forward demolishes the lid of the bow locker.
It takes on water over the transom much too easily. Not just where the cut out is for the outboard, but over the transom itself. To compound things the bilge pump packs up. It is OK while we are going at speed with the elephant trunk down, but stop to kit up divers and we are soon ankle deep in water. It isn't just the load. We continue to take water over the stern while divers are in the water.
Whilst the Lowrance sounder/plotter continues to perform to perfection, the Star radio first starts to flash though channels and behave unpredictably, then dies completely. I guess it would have been wonderful in the cockpit of a yacht or wheelhouse of a hard boat, but it just isn't up to an open console in a dive boat.
Even when working we found the controls too small and close together to use in a moving boat and impossible to operate with dive gloves on. Isn't it about time someone started making radios with the same thought to waterproofing as Lowrnce puts into their GPS and echo sounders?
The drive from Lochaline to Thurso in Caithness takes 7 hours, including a good 90 minutes at Fort William to sort out overheating trailer hubs dripping molten grease. It turns out the brake mechanism had grounded somewhere causing the brakes to bind, possibly on a slip, maybe on the ferry at Coran, or maybe just on a rut in the road. We sort out the jammed bit of mechanism, slacken the cable and pack fresh grease into the bearings.