Diving
Malin
“Why
is it that one of the busiest roads in Scotland
has about six miles of dual carriageway over
its eighty-odd mile length?” was the thought
that came to mind as once more John “Montoya”
Lee dropped a gear to try and get passed another
wagon forming a mobile chicane on the twisting
roads towards the ferry terminal at Stranrear.
I was amazed at just how easily we shot passed
the traffic in his low-flying Mondeo estate,
loaded to the gunnels with four twin sets, four
stages a drop cylinder and two scooters. Upon
arriving at the Stenna ferry terminal it was
obvious to see, he’d been using the weight
to lower his suspension!
We
were heading over to Malin Head for the weekend
to hook up with a team of lads we’d recently
become friends with from Dublin. It was a bank
holiday in Ireland so the Dublin lads would
be up for a long weekend diving the wrecks of
the clear blue waters that surround Malin Head.
Over the phone we’d discussed what wrecks
we could have ago at over the weekend. The familiar
names of the “big-ones” were reeled
off “Justicia, Empire Heritage, Audacious”,
but as soon as Geoff mentioned “of course
there’s all the new stuff we’ve
pinged/dived over the past few months”
my ears pricked up. “New stuff, like what?
” came the swift reply. Geoff told me
of a U-boat they’d found only a couple
of weeks earlier. It was a really huge thing,
deck guns all over the place a really impressive
dive and the cargo liner Carthaginia, a wreck
that had been located the previous season and
a ship that had a pretty chequered career carrying
the “Barnado’s Children to Canada
and Australia. After discussing other targets
we settled on these two. Mix gas for seventy
metres max and away you go.
We
were soon on board the Stenna XXX and settled
down for the three and a half hour crossing
to Belfast. You can do the journey in half the
time on one of the HSS Catamarans but as this
was the bank holiday and school holiday week
we’d had to settle for Hobson’s
choice. The journey over was pleasant enough
and soon the familiar site of the huge cranes
of the Harland & Wolff shipyard were dominating
the skyline. The drive from Belfast to Malin
Head via Londonderry took about two hours so
we arrived at our B&B as the day drew to
a close – and what an eventful day it
had been for the Dublin divers!
A
few of the group had arrived up on Friday morning
and had gone out for a dive on the Carthaginian
on their 9m club RHIB – about six miles
offshore. As anyone who has dived this area
knows, the Atlantic that gives such great visibility
also can whip up quite a dramatic swell. One
of the divers had gone missing after surfacing,
the dive boat had seen him, he was there one
minute and gone the next. After a nine-hour
search involving two helicopters, two lifeboats
and numerous RIB’s and fishing boats,
someone on land spotted a diver clinging to
a lobster pot marker outside the harbour through
his binoculars. A boat was scrambled and XXX
was finally rescued. After swimming back nearly
five miles he was waiting for the tide to flood
as he couldn’t fight the current to get
into land. It was a lucky escape and you can
bet an EPIRB is on the top of his Christmas
list next year. We met XXX the next day, a bit
tired and sore but none the worse for wear all
things considered. That night we watched the
DVD of “Touching The Void” on the
laptop - the irony wasn’t lost on us.
We were down in the port for ten the next day,
the water inside the harbour was absolutely
clear; the sort of clarity that you know means
gin-clear offshore. Due to the previous days
drama there would only be three of us diving
and so Barry, John and I started loading our
gear aboard the eight-metre, diesel-inboard
RIB skippered by Geoff XXX from Dive North.
The journey time out would be about fifty minutes
and with a decent swell running we made sure
everything was well battened down. The smooth
grunt of the diesel started and we were soon
heading out of the harbour under a pleasantly
bright day – good visibility, bright sunshine,
can mean only one thing – available light
photos. After about a fifteen ride out into
the Atlantic, Geoff suddenly slowed the engines,
I knew the boat was fast but “can’t
be here already”, I thought. Geoff then
announced that this was the location of the
Carthaginian and from where XXX had surfaced
and been lost. I turned back to look towards
the distant cliffs of Malin Head and Donegal
– the sense of “rather him than
me” was palpable. Geoff pushed the handles
forward and we were on our way again. Thirty
minutes into the ride and the weather had worsened
somewhat. It had clouded over and the sea was
beginning to build, ahead we could see a squall
on the horizon, Geoff checked we were all still
happy and after a few nods of the collected
heads we continued on. Ah well maybe no available
light after all!
I
think we were all pleased when we finally got
over the site, the sea conditions had meant
that Geoff was forced to throttle back for the
last few miles so the journey to make life more
comfortable. Helping out crewing on the boat
was Shaun who is a also a diver and as we prepared
the shot he told me he just loves anything on
under or around the sea – Shaun is one
of life’s true enthusiasts. The shot was
in and after a bit of playing around to get
it right into the wreck we started kitting up
amid some pretty large waves. It was a case
of “don’t look down for too long,
take deep breaths clip something here, fasten
something there, more deep breaths”. I
looked across at John and then Barry –
I’m pretty sure that you wouldn’t
need to be Yuri Gella to be able to read our
minds. A few breaths on the old deco gas and
you went from a warmed up corpse to mildly human
again. As Shaun swilled the masks for us he
commented on how warm the water felt, Geoff
had also said that the water was unusually green
for the area. Strapped into all the gear we
were ready and went for it. Barry first, myself
then John slipped over the side of the boat.
As I looked down the shot-line the vis was disappointing
at a mere couple of metres. I scootered down
to about 6m to wait for John and do a quick
bubble check, the tell-tale whine of his scooter
signalled his arrival I checked his valves he
looked at mine and in that brief moment the
shot-line was gone. We scootered down and ahead
but there was no sign of it, in this layer of
water it would only need to be a few away before
it was lost. Only one thing for it up, locate
the buoy and down again. Once we picked up the
shot we nosed the scooter forward and just drove
it down. The warm water layer cleared at about
15m with a temperature change so dramatic that
it made me think my suit had sprung a leak.
As
we continued down through the clear water I
first started to discern the outline of a wreck
lying below. I glanced down at the bottom timer
on the scooter that showed a depth of 35m, now
that’s what you call visibility. It seemed
to take an age to reach the wreck, I thought
that I was caught in a current but it was the
simple fact that the U-boat was both very large
and still some 25m below me. I landed by the
conning tower and took a few moments to settle
into wreck-mode and make those few adjustments
that make the difference between a cluster and
a great dive.
Away
to my left the first few flashes from the strobe
signalled John’s intention to use a strobe
on the dive as he set the camera up.
From
where I’d landed I could see the two large
deck guns Barry had described the one in front
of the conning tower was much larger than the
one aft. This had helped to give a probable
identification to the wreck over the weeks since
the team had first found it.
The
U-89 had been laid down at the Kaiserliche Werft,
Danzig yard on the 15th December 1915, launched
in October 1916 and finally commisioned into
the III Flotilla on the 27th June 1918. The
Mittel-U class of U-boat were large excellent
seagoing boats and many of their features would
be incorporated into the design of the Type
IX U-boats that proved so effective on long
patrols in WW2. Many of this class were equipped
with two deck guns: one 105mm and one 88mm.
The U89 had made three succesful patrols and
had sunk six ships accounting for some15,381
tons of shipping. For her final patrol she was
under the command of Oblt Wilhelm Bauck when
she entered the North Channel looking for further
Allied shipping. On the 12th February 1918 she
spotted a convoy and had surfaced to attack
using her deck guns but she did not see the
Devonshire class Crusier HMS Roxburgh that was
escorting the convoy. The cruiser steamed straight
at U89, ramming her behind the conning tower
with devestating and lethal blow. The U89 and
her entire crew were lost.
Lying
on the deck besides me where the deck-ready
rounds probably for the smaller gun judging
by their calibre. The conning tower was quite
small for the size of the submarine, although
the fairing would have long gone it was still
small compared to others I’d seen. Once
we’d had a chance to photograph the shells
and the other jumble of debris we lifted of
on the scooters and started to move towards
the stern. Having crossed over the pressure
hull we came to the area behind the conning
tower where HMS Roxburgh’s bow had been
at its most destructive. On the starboard side,
the pressure hull was ripped open from the conning
tower bulkhead to very near to the stern. The
twin diesel engines were the first and most
identifiable features amidst the tangle or ripped
and shattered hull. We could clearly see the
pressure hull bulkhead and the hatch to the
control room still open. The engine block with
their rockers and pistons stretched away to
the stern. We dropped down into the break and
then onto the seabed. Looking back up towards
the gun and the conning tower gave a real sense
of scale – just a pity the light wasn’t
bright enough to capture the scene.
Moving
further towards the stern the starboard propeller
and the rudder came into view where a large
lobster sat wondering what all the bright lights
and fuss was all about. I scootered away from
the bow to get a sense of the wrecks condition,
more debris lay scattered around the rocky seabed
and looking along the U-boat I could clearly
see Barry, his light flickering over the conning
tower a good 30m away. Dropping back down to
the wreck, the twin outer-hatches for the stern
torpedo tubes stood still sealed against the
depths. We decided to get a few shots around
this area before we started to move down the
port side of the wreck. We came across numerous
holes in the pressure hull near the stern and
looking inside them you could see the jumble
of torpedoes that had been thrown from their
racks.
The
current had started to pick up so we used it
to slowly drift up and along the top of the
hull and back past the conning tower towards
the forward 105mm gun. Geoff had asked us to
try and make sure the grapple was free so I
dropped down to cut it loose from the main part
of the shot. John used the time to take more
photographs around the larger deck gun. We were
25mins into our allotted maximum of 30min and
the current was picking up all the time so once
I’d retrieved the grapple we started the
ascent slowly up the shot-line. We were still
able to see the wreck while we made a gas switch
onto the travel gas. Soon we were up into the
milky-warm water layer (Geoff later felt that
this was probably something caused by the Gulf-Stream)
and completed the rest of our decompression
on a free-hang under a bag.
Back
on the surface we were in bright sunshine once
more and were soon heading back towards the
coastline still far away in the distance. Although
the weather had improved the sea was building
on a spring flood tide and Geoff had to use
all his skill and experience to “surf”
the RIB across some pretty high peaks and deep
troughs.
Back
in the confines of the harbour in the early
evening we had time to grab a meal unload the
boat and get the gas mixed for the following
day. As we didn’t have enough time to
catch he afternoon slack and then drive to the
ferry, we would need to be in the harbour for
6.30am to catch the early slack. We didn’t
get much time to get into the “crack”
before it was time to head back to the B&B.
Our hosts Mary and James Houghton very kindly
said that making us a cooked breakfast at 6am
was no problem, though we were more than happy
for a bit of cereal and toast at that time.
Bright
eyed and bushy tailed (sort of) we made our
way down to the port for the dive on the Carthaginian.
The sea looked flat calm and we knew that we
had about a quarter of the time running out
to the wreck. We cleared the harbour and were
soon up on the plane, looking ahead though the
sea seemed to have that boiling effect on the
horizon – must be the shoals between the
island of Inishtrahull and Malin Geoff had shown
us on the steam back in yesterday, its an area
that can be notoriously lumpy. As we pushed
further offshore though the sea conditions continued
to build and the theme tune to Hawia Five-0
seemed to be the most apt. One again all Geoff’s
skill was called upon to ride between some pretty
big waves. Once we arrived on site we settled
the boat down to see just how bad it was when
we weren’t pushing into it. Unfortunately
it was still as bad very deep troughs when you
were at the bottom you couldn’t see out
when standing up. Alternatives were discussed
and the idea of going out further to see what
it was like was discussed but that was dismissed
when we saw George Clooney on the Andrea Gail
sailing back in! No it was time to leave it
for today – the wrecks aren’t going
anywhere.
Reluctantly
we packed the car up and said “see you
soon” rather than goodbye to the lads.
We returned to the B&B for a shower and
a very welcome breakfast, before heading back
to Belfast and an early ferry. Although it was
a busy weekend it can be done much easily, though
ideally it would be a long weekend; needless
to say we’ll be back!
Expedition
File
Type Mittel-U Class U-boat
Displacement 1160 Tons
Length 67m
Year built 1915
Date sunk 12th February 1918
Armament 4 bow & 2 stern tubes and carrying
16 torpedoes
1 - 105mm deck gun
1 – 88mm deck gun
Maximum 220 rounds ammunition
Cause of sinking Rammed by HMS Roxburgh
Loss of life 39 (full crew)
Conditions
Water temp Bottom 12
Decompression 15
Visibility Bottom 30m+
Decompression 3m
Currents Generally a location you can dive at
any state
of the tide, however a good swell and spring-tide
will create quite a run.
Max depth 64m (high water)
Gas list Trimix 20/40 bottom
EANx 32 travel
EANx 80 decompression
EANx 60 Drop cylinder
Logistics
Dive North E-mail: divenorth@btopenworld.com
Web: www.divenorth.com
Tel: (+44) 02871 354627
Whitestrand B&B E-mail: whitestrand@eircom.net
Web: http://homepage.eircom.net/~whitestrand
Tel: (+353) 074 937 0335
Inishowen
Tourism E-mail: info@visitinishowen.com
Web: www.visitinishowen.com
Tel: (+353) 074 937 4933
Stenna
Line
