St Kilda
by Andrew Martin

The club normally organises a 'big-trip' once a year, to which all competent divers (plus, on this occasion, me) are invited. This year the training officer organised a dive trip to St. Kilda in the North Atlantic for ten divers. Ten divers, one skipper, a mate, a world-class chef, a converted lifeboat, and more anti-sea-sickness pills than you could shake a snorkel at set off from Oban on Tuesday morning.
We arrived in Oban on the Monday morning after a long drive up the motorways in wet weather. The first night in Oban was at a local hotel, while the boat was made ready for the trip. We then joined it next morning.
The Poplar Diver is a converted RNLI lifeboat, making it a very safe, and fast, vessel. As the skipper put it, it's a boat that will thrash through very major seas long after the stomachs of all on board have given up the ghost. A comforting thought. We spent that first night in Tobemory, after motoring up the Mull. Tobemory is a picture-squeak Scottish town with terrific pubs.
From 'Tobes' we did the crossing to St. Kilda overnight, which in retrospect is by far the best way of doing it. The journey is long and boring, and if it's going to be rough then the best place to be is asleep. It was, of course, rough. Everyone took seasickness pills (washed down with Whiskey, naturally) and we bedded down for the night. Everyone but Steve Hall (who spent the night in the shower tray for reasons best known to him and his stomach contents) had a relatively good nights sleep.
The bedrooms on the Poplar Diver are right up the front of the boat. In fact the extreme forward cabin must be more or less over the bow - probably not the best place to be in a big sea! It's also strange in that the cabins are totally isolated from the rest of the boat by the engine room, containing two 8-Cylinder Gardiner diesel engines. The only way to the saloon and wheelhouse is via a heavy dogged deck door, along the side of the boat in though a door. If the weather is dodgy then the paying guests are bolted in for the duration.
We arrived in Village Bay on the island of Hirta on Wednesday morning. We were all awakened by the sudden cessation of crashing through waves and all surfaced from our rooms like pit ponies, blinking in the sunlight and taking the view of St. Kilda.
After porridge, cereal, toast and tea we went diving! The first dive of the day was a shake down dive at 25m in the bay itself. It was a pleasant dive, in water with decent visibility and 12°C water temperature. Not a lot of life in the water itself, but very pretty.

In the afternoon we looked at diving the saw-cut, on the Isle of Dun, but the heavy north Atlantic swells were making conditions difficult. The first divers in were swept straight away from the rocks by a fierce current, which put us off putting more divers in the water. Instead we motored over to the far side of the bay and dived in the quieter waters there. The dive was very similar to the previous.
We had another amazing meal cooked by Heather, our chef for the week. It is Heather's mission to ensure that everyone who dives with the Poplar Diver leaves it with fond memories, and the prospect of a month at a health farm trying to lose the bloated waistline. The food was f-a-n-t-a-s-t-i-c, and there was always another one of those in the oven...

On Thursday morning we dived the saw-cut. This is a big underwater crag in the rocks of Dun, an island that forms the south east side of Village Bay. The water was incredibly clear in the crag itself, but still not many fish short of crustaceans and plant life. It was slightly disappointing to me in that sense. The sawcut can be a strange place to dive because the water surface 20m above slams into small caves, causing a pressure lock that 'booms' underwater. A few times I checked my scuba set to see if something was not right, unnerved by the noise.

In the afternoon we went ashore for a guided tour around the settlement on Hirta, on the main island in the St. Kilda archipelago. It was very interesting, but being a walking nut I sought clearance from the warden to climb the big hill in the middle of the island, giving a stunning view in all directions.
It took a couple of hours round trip from the settlement, up the road to the satellite and missile tracking stations, up to the peak and back round. The sea cliffs are amongst the highest in the UK, and it truly feels it looking down from the edge. It is a pity that the hills have such an ugly mast and dish on the top. When you get close you realise that whoever was responsible (the UK armed forces) was not interested in keeping the place tidy. There is everything from cable ties to RSJ's just lying in the grass.

On Friday morning we motored over to Boreray, the distinct island that is set away from Hirta. This, and the sea stacs, are the most important breeding area for European sea birds. Up close it is a mass of nesting birds, and disturbed by the Poplar Diver they took to the air, making it thick with feathers. Don't look up with your mouth open!
The planned dive was an arch at about 25m. Stress and Terry attempted it in a very heavy swell, and made it through to the other side. However the rest of us dived a slightly simpler wall dive further along the island at just shy of 30m depth. It was a good dive with lots of plant life on a wide shelf underwater. There were tunnels into the rock that had the potential to go right rough the island to the other side. I felt there was a current pulling me towards those entrances, so I avoided them like the plague, concerned that the current might not let me out again.
That afternoon we sailed back to Port Maddy in the Outer Hebrides in brilliant sunshine, and a settled sea-state. From the Sound of Harris we could still make out St. Kilda even after five hours of motoring.

Saturday morning we got up, had another Olympic breakfast feast (usual fourteen courses) and sailed to the isle of Canna for a light drift dive. There were hardly any fish, but plenty of kelp, and a crab wandered into the goody bag (literally).
We then spent Saturday night in Tobes again and hit the town running. We all had a late night drinking session in the Mish, where we met the chefs sister (hubba-hubba).

We woke on Sunday morning with one or two heavy heads and left Tobes to do a couple of dives on the Mull. The first was the famous wreck of the Hispania. This is a stunning wreck that is covered in life. There were very few places where it was possible to lay a hand on rusty metal for all the dead-mans-fingers that had colonized every available surface. Myself and my buddy Baldrick dropped to the bow and investigated the sea bed around the wreck. There were some very large fish, plus some pretty sponges. We then slowly ascended through the superstructure, taking time to investigate the holds before launching the SMB from a deck fitting. Nice dive, although the current made it tricky to navigate.

In the afternoon I dived with Steve Hall on a food dive, bring some scallops up to the pot for John Hutchings. This was a 37minute dive time, following a light drift along a wall with small lobster peeping out of the rocks, and red eyed crabs scurrying away from our torch beams. Once again though we put the goody bag on the sea bed and a crab sauntered straight in. Life can't be good at the bottom of the Mull if the crabs are so determined to end up in the pot!
We stopped a final night in Tobes and had another gargantuan meal, sqeezed some beer in on top and hit the sack. On Monday morning, which was also our last day we managed to do two dives before lunch. The first was on the wreck of the Ronda, again in the Mull.
The Ronda lies at about 60degrees, bow first into the Mull. The enormous rudder still sits in its mountings at about 8m depth, but the bows are at more like 50m down in the gloom. I dived with the D.O. (on my best behaviour) down to 33m, and slowly ascended through the inclined deck. It gives a strange sense of vertigo being on something so steep, and the giant rudder forms a roof at the top. A very imposing wreck I thought.
We finished off with a simple dive at a place called Rubha an Ridire. This is a seal hauling out platform with some beautiful walls under the water at less than 20m. One wall was a mass of dead-mans-fingers so densely packed it looked like coral. We also found the biggest crab I've ever seen, a good foot across the shell. Needless to say we left it well alone, otherwise I probably wouldn't be typing this report now!

The weather on these last few days was just incredible. Not a cloud in the sky, and fantastic surface visibility to the distant snow capped mountains. Not bad for the north of Scotland. Overall it was a very good week. Credit to John Hutchings for organising the trip, and Northern Light Charters with the Poplar Diver for executing it.

South Northants BSAC Branch www.snbsac.org/


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