check where in the water I was aiming to land - and then raised my head to look at the horizon. I had heard of faceplates cracking on stride entries if a diver was staring straight downwards. The glass took the force of the impact with the water and sometimes yielded to it.
Striding outwards strongly and pushing off with my trailing leg I was suddenly air borne. The combined weight of my dive kit and myself took me downwards like a Disney ride and I splashed into an explosion of white water and bubbles.
As the foam of my entry dissipated, I looked downwards and saw the seabed at the bottom of the gully running off out to seaward. I looked back at my buddy and he signalled for us to dive - so down we went to the bottom. I then followed him as we meandered out along the bottom of the gully before we cleared a large rocky shelf and the seabed dropped away deeper.
We followed the seabed down and as we moved on, I started to see some mangled bits of ship debris. Some rotted plates were lying in the sand alongside a pile of anchor chain. As we moved further out, the debris field got thicker and more crowded. Very soon the whole seabed was covered in the remains of a ship’s demise.
The seabed was an almost uniform litter of flattened bits of ship. Sections of ship’s side plating, beams and struts lay all around, sometimes part covered by rippled sandbanks - driven there by winter storms. Then in the distance two large black circles appeared, some five metres high. As we approached them I saw that they were boilers, about seven metres in length. I swam around them trying to work out how they had functioned in life.
All around the two boilers were the remains of an engine room. Large steam pipes competed for space with mangled bits of catwalks and other unidentifiable pieces of machinery. And all around in all the nooks and crannies provided by this mass of bent and buckled steel, the seabed teemed with all manner of crabs, lobsters and the occasional conger eel.
I was also surprised to find several golf balls in varying states of decay amongst the debris. Cruden Bay, a small coastal village a few miles down the coast, has a very fine and well-respected championship golf course, which I had played, right down at the seaside. These golf balls had been lost aeons ago and had been driven here along the sandy seabed by the current before becoming trapped in the wreckage.
Once our time on the bottom was almost up, we retraced our steps back through the mangled mess of steel. I was very impressed at my dive buddy’s precision in difficult surroundings in being able to navigate straight back to the same gully where we had entered.
Once back ashore we had to struggle up the steep path cut in the cliffs to the cars high above us before cracking open flasks of tea and chatting about the wreck. This had been my first taste of wreck diving and although there was no recognisable ship shape left to the vessel, the submerged devastation had been fascinating. I tried to envisage the awesome power of winter easterly storms that could pulverise and reduce a large ship to pieces no larger than a dining room table. No one knew the name of the vessel.
Once back home, in the coming week’s I read up on a few publications about shipwrecks in the north of Scotland. In an old dive magazine I came across an article on shipwrecks around these shores. Interestingly, there was brief mention of the SS Chicago, which had run aground right beneath Slains Castle in 1894. She was a large vessel and the more I read the more I realised that this was surely the identity for this wreck. This was my first taste of amateur wreck detective work and soon I was regaling the club with the identity of the wreck and the story of its sinking.
Just identifying the wreck and learning its story had brought the wreck to life for me. No longer was it a mangled pile of junk on the seabed. I could tell where the vessel had been built and by whom. But the most intriguing aspect of all was the tale of how this vessel came to lie at the foot of Slains Castle.
The SS Chicago had been a Sunderland registered schooner-rigged steamship owned by the Neptune Steam Navigation Company. She had sailed on 9 October 1894 from her homeport of Sunderland bound for Baltimore with a small general cargo of 130 tons.
She had safely run up the east coast of England and then moved past the Firth of Forth and on to Dundee and the River Tay. Moving onwards up north, Aberdeen had passed by on her port beam. Shortly after midnight she passed Cruden Bay and the feared Cruden Skerries, a very dangerous collection of rocks and reefs, already a graveyard for many a ship. A stiff southerly wind was blowing, helping her northerly progress.
The Second Officer, who was on watch, saw an unidentified light ahead and called for the Captain to come to the bridge. Suddenly it was realised that they were heading for rocks and the shore. The engines were put full astern – but it was too late. Her momentum and the southerly winds contrived to drive her onto the rocks right beneath the Castle.
Her three forward holds were holed and she stuck fast on a submerged rock ledge. Her engines were run astern for two hours to see if she could be pulled off the rocks and saved – but all the time, the once friendly southerly wind contrived to become her enemy, working against her engines on her hull and masts to pin her on the shelf.
Eventually the crew was taken off by the local Rocket Brigade, watched by a large audience of those who had been attending a servant’s ball in the castle but who found this compelling drama far more entertaining. The Chicago became a complete write-off.
I had found something new in diving. This combination of wreck dive, research and acquisition of knowledge I found irresistible - and I soon found myself being drawn towards further wreck dives. Little did I know at this stage, how this passion would develop.
Kyle of Lochalsh and HMS Port Napier
“And make your chronicle as rich with praise
As is the ooze and bottom of the sea,
With sunken wreck and sumless treasures”
Shakespeare, Henry V
Later that year, 1984, as a veteran (well at least in my own mind) of some 25 dives, I booked myself onto the Ellon BSAC weekend dive trip to Kyle of Lochalsh on the west coast of Scotland. I was keen to dive my first proper shipwreck, something that looked like the Hollywood version of a shipwreck.
At dive club meetings I had heard much talk of the wreck of the Port Napier at Kyle of Lochalsh. Kyle is a small coastal town, which is the gateway from mainland Scotland to the romantic Isle of Skye. It is only about half a mile across Loch Alsh to the Isle of Skye.
Looking across Loch Alsh to Skye from Kyle, the dark brooding Munros of the Cuillin Hills, famous amongst mountaineers, dominate the lower lands around. At this time, Skye was only reachable by the local ferry - now of course it is served by the Skye Bridge.
The plan was to dive the relatively intact wreck of the Second World War minelayer, HMS Port Napier twice on the Saturday, stay overnight and dive another location twice on the Sunday. We would then head back home to the east coast of Scotland. This would involve a 5-hour drive across the whole width of Scotland, directly after work on a dark November Friday night.
The club had booked into a small cluster of about 5 wooden log built chalets at Duirinish, a sleepy hamlet of cottages, some still with the old fashioned corrugated tin roofs. Sheep still wander freely amongst the cottages and on the streets. It lies a couple of miles from the small town of Plockton, along a narrow road with passing places.
Plockton, which is about 10 miles from
