Clyde 6th to 8th August 2004

This was the 3^rd consecutive year that Digs had arranged this trip. We were again booked in with Clyde Diving, and using their boat Clutha (which, as I was told last year, means “Spirit of the Clyde”.) Apart from Digs, the others on the trip were: Rob Hampton, Steve Jones, Kate Rowley, Alan Walker, Kieran Fraser, Matt Carpenter, Simon Kay, Alan Ramsey, Adam Walker, Sharon Walker, and Rich Meese. 

Rich missed the first days diving as he had to work, and when he arrived for Saturday I pointed out that it was the second time that his car had been to Scotland. The first time was when it was stolen in London and found in Glasgow. 

I had travelled up a day earlier that the rest of the group to have an extended break, and as with the previous 2 years I stayed at Roberta’s B&B in Largs. 

As those who have dived in this area will know, the water is very dark. On the 2 previous trips I have been quite narked on some of the wrecks deeper than 35 metres when diving on air. So this time I took my own supply of oxygen and helium to make some appropriate mixes for these wrecks. This typically meant mixes of 26/12 each day. 

Friday

Dive 1: Kintyre, Max Depth 45.4 metres, Run time 68 minutes

The Kintyre was a small cargo passenger ship steamship built in 1868 and was 184 feet long and 22 feet wide. She was a small passenger steamship and was apparently a very graceful ship. The ship, in common with many before and since, came to grief after a collision with another ship, in this case the other ship was the 3,500 tonnes steamer called Maori.

I went in with Sharon & Adam. We reached the wreck at about 31 metres. Elaine (the skipper) had dived the wreck the previous evening and had put the shot right on the bow. When we talk about the blunt end and the pointy end of the wreck, then this wreck definitely has a “pointy” end. The bows are certainly the narrowest that I have seen. The wreck lies on a steeply sloping bottom and we made our way down the starboard side, my buddies and I parted company at about 40 metres and I carried on down to just over 45 metres. At this point the wreck is breaking up and so I made my way back up to the bows. From the bows there is a rope that leads to a shallow area close to shore where there is a disused sewage outlet. This area is teeming with life, lots of crabs and squat lobster, plus huge plumose anemones. It is also an excellent area to do your deco, rather than hanging in mid water.

Dive 2: Akka, Max Depth 26.5 metres, Run time 43 minutes

The Akka was built in Sweden in 1942, she was 442 feet long and 56 feet wide. She sunk in 1956 after hitting Gantock rocks. At the time of her sinking she was carrying iron ore and bound for Glasgow.

It is possible to get at least 35 metres on this wreck, but as it was the second dive of the day I decided to stay shallower. The shot was midships and dropping off the bridge we hit the deck and went along the companionways towards the stern. The wreck is teeming with brittlestars, and any part that isn’t so covered has been colonised by plumose anemones. 

Saturday

Today was Digs’ birthday so I had got some cash out of everyone and bought lots of cake from the local supermarket for our lunch. Elaine and Drew had also bought her some flowers. 

Dive 3: MTB, Max Depth 40.5 metres, Run time 57 minutes 

This motor torpedo boat is in Loch Striven and we had a nice relaxing motor out to this wreck. Although we did see a few porpoises unfortunately we didn’t get the dolphins swimming in our bow wave that we had last year. This is a wooden wreck and it seems to have deteriorated quite a bit since last year, but last year I was so narked I’m not sure that anything that I noted about the wreck would be reliable. A lot of the portholes have now been removed I must admit to being a little disappointed in the general condition as I had been looking forward to diving this wreck again. I went in with Rich and Rob and once on the bottom we all went our separate ways, although I did actually surface with Rob however we were forced to admit that this was pure coincidence as we just happened to get back to the shot line at the same time. Rich arrived at the surface somewhat later as he had found his way inside the wreck and “forgot” to lay a line and after destroying the viz had to wait patiently for it to clear before he could find his way back out. 

Dive 4: Wallachia, Max Depth 30.8 metres, Run time 42 minutes

The shot for this dive was in the mid section (eventually) I think we counted 5 attempts at trying to hit the wreck. Not Elaine’s best attempt of the weekend. The first 2 down on the first attempt were Kieran and Simon and had to come back up as they were not on the wreck. The wreck itself is covered in brittlestars and Elaine claimed that they kept moving it???

The Wallachia was built in 1883 and was 259 feet long and 36 feet wide, she was sunk in September 1895 as the result of a collision with a Norwegian ship called Flos. She was carrying a cargo that included whisky, gin, beer, glassware, earthenware plus clothing. The holds of this ship are deep with silt and there have been fatal incidents with divers entering the whisky hold in particular.

From the mid section I went to the bows then back to the engine room. I was heading for the stern but the current had picked up and so decided to bag off. As I started to ascend and drift my line got wrapped around the shot line and made the ascent difficult. Fortunately Rob was on the shot line higher up and freed my line for me.

Sunday

More cake again today to celebrate Digs’ birthday. That’s the problem when you get that old, it takes 2 days to celebrate them.

Dive 5: Beagle, Max Depth 33.8 metres, Run time 42 minutes

The Beagle an iron steamship was employed as a passenger and cargo vessel, mainly working between Glasgow and Belfast. She  was 189 feet long and 26 feet wide. She was only one year old when she sunk after a collision with a steamer called Napoli off Skate point.

The shot was on the stern and Rich and I dropped off here down to the rudder and prop, from here back to deck level and the full length of the wreck via the 2 holds. Then returned to the shot along the same route. We saw a couple of congers and some pollack but not much else in the way of fish, but still interesting to poke around in the holds. Much to everyone’s amusement Rich and I had stayed together for the whole dive…well almost, his Aladin computer still had 16 minutes left when I left him to finish his deco.

Dive 6: Greenock, Max Depth 30.0 metres, Run time 46 minutes

Digs, Rob, Kieran, Adam and Sharon opted out of this dive as they wanted to make an early start for the journey home, so after dropping them off at Inverkip we headed back out for the Greenock.

This ship was built in 1876 and was 181 feet long and 38 feet wide. She sunk in 1902 after a collision with another ship. She was built as a bucket dredger to keep the port of Greenock clear. During WW2 the navy placed 2 mines alongside of her to act as sea defences. These were detonated in 1996.

Elaine managed to shot this wreck with only 3 attempts…

Rich and I headed towards the stern and then back along the starboard side where the buckets have fallen to the side. As with just about every wreck in the Clyde it is very dark, probably the darkest in the area. As we moved away from the buckets and the huge wheels Rich’s torch began to fail so we drifted back in the direction of the shot. However as we didn’t get to it Rich bagged off. I continued for a few more minutes then did the same. Rich was surprised to see me already on the boat when he got there as I had been doing my deco on 75% whereas he was on his back gas.

That concluded a great weekend’s diving, 6 dives which all involved deco on the aforementioned 75%. I was planning on staying for 2 extra days but that evening we had a huge storm so I cut the holiday short by one day and made my way back down south. This involved a detour into North Wales to return some kit that Rob had left on the boat.

The pic below shows the Waverley which we saw on one of the days, she was built in 1947 and was a replacement for one of the same name that was lost during the war. She is approx 80 metres long and is the last sea-going paddle steamer in the world.

And some more pics from the weekend: