Royal Navy had obligingly removed her uppermost port side hull plating during the mine recovery operation. If divers penetrate into her interior down at depth and something goes wrong, then they can rise up to a clear surface inside her instead of being trapped inside.
Additionally, the open side of her hull lets lots of ambient light penetrate down into her innards lighting up her inner recesses which would otherwise be cocooned in eternal darkness. She is many a diver’s first taste of wreck diving. She would also be my first taste of a relatively intact wreck.
Whilst I listened to the diver’s tales my imagination ran riot as to what I was going to see – but I was soon snapped out of this reverie by the return of the two cox’s, theirs cars and trailers now safely parked out of harm’s way.
I was to be in Richard Cook’s boat today. He showed me where I should stash my gear and where I should sit and then went on to organise all the other kit coming aboard - and to allocate spaces for the other divers to sit to keep the boat balanced up and trim.
Once both boats and their human cargo of divers were ready for sea the mooring ropes were cast off. The two Zodiacs powered up and roared out from Kyle harbour across towards Skye pushing at their bow waves before riding up on top and onto the plane.
I watched as we flashed at full speed past two small rocky islands. Richard shouted over the roar of the outboard that there was a smashed up wreck in between.
The strip of water here that divides Skye from the mainland, Loch Alsh, is only about half a mile wide and is protected by high land on both sides – it can be a very settled piece of water. Today in the early stillness of a crisp November morning, the water shone and glistened like a mill pond, the foaming white wash of our wakes cutting an ever increasing V shape as it rippled and spread out remorselessly from our stern across the oily surface of the water.
We continued on our way over to Skye, turning slightly to head towards the south. Soon, in the distance I could see what looked like a long line of rocks sticking out of the water dead ahead of us.
“That’s the Port Napier over there” said one of the old hands over the roar of the outboard. “It looks like a pile of rocks but what you’re really seeing is the kelp and barnacle covered ribs of her hull sticking up”
“Look at the shore,” said another, eager to share the knowledge with me. “Can you see the large square sections of rusted metal at the water’s edge? That’s the deck housing off her – it blew there when she exploded. Look further up the hill behind – yeah, up there. See the large grey overhead electricity pylon? If you look carefully at the bottom of it you’ll see some more of the deckhouse. That’s the furthest it went – it must have been a helluva bang!” he laughed as he spread his hands out recreating the explosion manually.
I searched the dark heather where he pointed, but couldn’t see anything. My mind boggled at the enormity of the explosive force that must have been needed to propel a section of steel deck housing that big over such a distance.
As our Zodiac closed on the dark kelp covered line of rocks I was told was the Port Napier, a few sea birds lifted off its ribs, screaming at our intrusion into their domain. Richard took the Zodiac down off the plane and deftly let the boats’ momentum carry us up to a small white buoy that bobbed in the water some way away from the wreck itself. As we glided up to it he untied the bow painter rope from the grab line on one of the side sponsons and deftly snared the white buoy and tied off to it.
The other Zodiac came in and nudged to a stop beside us and tied off.
“The buoy here is tied off about 30 feet along the foremast” explained one of the divers who had dived her before. “The mast still sticks right out from the hull about halfway down the deck – that’s 10 metres down to it – and another 10 metres down from there to the seabed.”
There were to be two waves of divers going in from our boat today. The first wave would dive, leaving those diving in the second wave in the Zodiac to give boat cover. Once the first wave of divers was back in the boat, the second wave of divers would go in.
I was by now extremely eager to get in the water but found that most of the old hands indicated that they wanted to dive in the second wave. Too late it dawned on me that they would be able to sit warm and dry throughout the first wave’s dive. The first wave, the wave I was told I was to be in, would get back in the boat and then have to shiver through the long wait whilst the second wave went in. Wet, with a November wind slicing effortlessly through a wet suit would soon have the cold gnawing at my bones. There’s no substitute for experience.
I had already learned to take a waterproof out to sea on boat dives to slip over my wet suit to lessen the wind chill. Although no one dives in wet suits these days, wet suits then were the prevailing way to dive. They worked quite well in shallow Scottish waters. Once above water however, the warm layer of water trapped between wet suit and skin, which is what keeps the diver warm, drains down into your boots and robs the wet suit of its thermal qualities. A cold wind seemingly sliced right through them.
I was to be diving in a threesome that day with the experienced Richard and one other diver, slightly more experienced than me. Sitting on the sponson of the Zodiac I popped my Fenzy ABLJ horse collar over my head and clipped off the two fixing straps, one around my back and the other under my crotch. I pulled on my weight belt, fastened the quick release clasp, pulled up my integral wet suit hood and slipped my mask onto my forehead.
Picking up my single air tank I hefted its black rubber encased bottom onto the large grey Zodiac side tube. Holding it steady I squatted down almost onto my knees, got my arms under the shoulder harnesses and stood up and tied the waist fastener around me - letting the tank sit securely and snugly.
Sitting down on the tube again, I rested the tank on the grey tube, letting it take the weight whilst I pulled on my black rubber jet fins. Finally I was ready to dive.
My two dive buddies for the morning were also just about ready. With a few minutes grace I turned round and studied the buoy and followed the line as it plunged beneath the water down towards the foremast of the wreck. The visibility looked quite good - I could see a long way down the line from here above the surface. But there was no sign of the foremast itself.
The water was still, like a glistening millpond despite the cold above-water temperature. The ominous clouds over Skye to the west seemed to be getting larger and slowly moving our way. There was a threatening, massing darkness, which promised rain – or even snow later in the day.
My two companions signalled that they were ready and we did a quick buddy check on each other’s rigs to make sure that there had not been a stupid omission, like forgetting to switch open the pillar valve on an air tank. Everything was in order – and we all rolled simultaneously off the two sides tubes of the Zodiac into the dark water.
As the first explosion of white water and bubbles from my entry disappeared there was, immediately, the familiar feeling of cold seawater trickling down my back in between my skin and wet suit. I knew it would soon warm up but it was one of the aspects to wet suit diving in Scotland that I hated most.
Very soon my wetsuit was fully flooded. A thin layer of water became trapped and warmed up by my own body heat – this warm layer then shielded me from the cold water outside my suit.
I looked downwards and saw my legs and black fins suspended above an inky void. There was no sign of any wreck at all. I got myself into a prone position and kicked my legs, the jet fins propelling me easily up to the bow where the painter was tied off to the white buoy. Once I got there I could see the buoy line leading below and at the limit of my vision
