one of the most picturesque villages in Scotland, famous for its palm trees, warm waters and coral beaches, a product of the warming Gulf stream that runs along the west coast of Scotland. Plockton consists mainly of several rows of houses and a couple of hotels which are strung along a picturesque small sea loch - and boasts its very own small island just 200 yards off the main sea frontage. This island dries out at low water allowing locals, tourists and the local free range Highland cows to walk out to it and explore. From time to time the cows get temporarily trapped on the island as the tide comes back in.
I left work at 5pm on the Friday night and quickly loaded my dive gear into my rapidly disintegrating, patched up, rusted and now not so bright orange, Renault 14. This now boasted a front nearside wing in purple, which I had recovered from a scrap car dealer and fitted myself, along with racing style bonnet catches, which I had fitted to the chassis, and drilled through the bonnet to secure it. The bonnet front and its usual fixings had all rotted away and the bonnet was in danger of flying up in windy conditions.
I set off for Kyle on my own in the dark. The miles sped by and in the darkness I became inured to the constant trail of headlamps coming the other way as I crossed the busy contraflow section of road from Aberdeen to Inverness.
Once past Inverness, I drove down the road that meanders along the shores of Loch Ness - and the haunting ruins of Urquhart Castle near Drumnadrochit passed by me as a ghostly silhouette in the darkness. Soon I had turned off onto the road through Kintail towards the west coast, and Kyle.
I had never spent time on the extreme west coast of Scotland before and had no idea what to expect after Loch Ness. The contraflow roadway soon gave way to a single track Highland road with passing places. Being well into the evening, the road was quiet and I could see the lights of the occasional approaching car miles ahead in the dark distance.
I moved quickly and smoothly through the twisting forested section before the forest ended and I was in the open glens and lands of Kintail. In the darkness I had no idea of the beauty and majesty of the mountains that were now flashing by me - the limit of my world was the dim cocoon of light around me from the dashboard instruments - and the brilliant beams of light from my headlamps.
Kyle soon approached and I took the turning off to the north to Plockton. Ten minutes later I was completely lost in pitch darkness amongst heather covered hills.
The single-track roads I was following meandered all over the place in the 10-mile space between Plockton and Kyle. They were poorly signposted, presumably intentionally to confuse German paratroopers and the odd visiting diver to the area. I reached several unsignposted junctions where the road split. It was potluck.
It turned out that the chalets were off the beaten track, down a small tree shrouded and unsignposted entrance, itself off a small road, which in turn led off from the single-track road that linked Kyle to Plockton.
Eventually, after circling the area several times and ruling out all of the possibilities one by one, I drove down a small road, over a cattle grid and turned down the small entranceway to the Duirinish chalets and over another cattle grid. The small cluster of chalets was at last revealed in the glare of my headlamps. Here and there light spilled from windows running with condensation. Cars and grey rubber Zodiac dive boats on trailers were clustered around a few of them.
In the darkness I was drawn to the welcoming chinks of light escaping past drawn curtains. I parked the car, took out my dry gear bag and a sleeping bag and jumping up a few slippery wooden steps, opened the door of one of the chalets. I was immediately enveloped by a hubbub of conversation and activity. After five hours of darkness in my car the harsh glare of fluorescent strip lights assaulted my eyes as if someone had just switched on a set of football stadium floodlights.
A kettle was coming to the boil on one of the units and the smell of brewed tea, toast and peanut butter hung in the air. I made myself a welcome cuppa and sat down to chat to the rest of my club members. There was an excited animation to the conversation, common to any sort of expedition – mainly centred on planning the next day’s diving.
The dive marshals for the trip had scheduled two dives, both were going to be on HMS Port Napier, the first at about 9am. The maximum depth for the dive, the depth to the seabed, was about 20 metres. In keeping with the BSAC recommendations of the time for repeat diving, there would then be a 6-hour decompression surface interval, before the second dive of the day, later in the afternoon.
We would rise at 7am, breakfast, load up and head off to Kyle to launch the Zodiacs at the small slip just to the south of the main ferry ramp. This slip used to serve the old ferry but had fallen into disuse when the larger roll on/roll off ferry had come into service, with the new large concrete landing ramp that was created for it.
In anticipation of the trip I had avidly read all the information I could gather on the wreck. Port Napier was a huge mine laying vessel, some 550 feet long and weighing in at 9,600 tons. On the night of 27 November 1940, she had been berthed at the railhead at Kyle, just a few hundred yards from where we would be launching. At that time, Kyle with its deep water, and easy access to the Inner Sound and out to the Minch, the Hebrides and Northern Isles was a significant naval base.
Kyle was also the railway head, the end of the railway line that snaked here from Inverness. The harbour was deep enough to accommodate large vessels of Port Napier’s size.
For days her crew had laboured hard, loading her with 550 mines that had arrived by rail. They were carefully passed down through the small loading hatch in the deck near the stern. From there, the crew ran the mines along narrow-gauge railways inside the vessel, which ran the full length of her and connected her 6 cavernous holds where the mines would be stored.
The railway lines ended at the very stern where there were four mine-laying doors cut in the hull. The mines, on their trolleys, were simply pushed out of the large doors - dropping down into the water.
The trolley was very heavy and immediately sunk quickly. The buoyant mine, was secured to the trolley by a long chain and cable, which had been cut to exactly the right length for the waters it was to be deployed in. The buoyant mine would be anchored to its trolley about 30 feet beneath the surface, deep enough not to be wasted on small vessels but at a depth where it would only be struck by larger, more precious ships with a bigger draught.
The loading operation had gone smoothly at first but then someone spotted that a fire had broken out aboard her. At first frantic attempts were made to extinguish the flames, but without success. Despite the efforts of the fire fighters the flames spread remorselessly and it soon became apparent to those aboard that the fire could not be controlled. A red glow grew in intensity, lighting up the darkness of the night sky.
The intensity of the fire grew and grew, as the did realisation that if the fires reached her cargo of 550 mines there would be a cataclysmic explosion which would destroy Port Napier – and which would also flatten Kyle.
As a result of the growing danger to the town the priority now became to get the burning vessel as far away as possible. The fire could not be extinguished - and would be left to run its full course. Only time would tell how this drama would unfold - and finally end.
Many of the residents of Kyle noticed the fire and general commotion down at the pier and congregated at the dock curious to see what was going on. As they pressed forward to watch the fire – and not knowing the danger they were in, they had to be held back by the local police.
To protect the inhabitants and buildings of the town, frantic arrangements were made for Kyle to be evacuated. Port Napier was cast loose from her moorings and taken in tow from the town by another naval vessel.
Initially, of
