Under Pressure

This trip was organised via www.congeralley.com (An on-line Scottish diving forum and dive site guide) and essentially involved Stuart (lizardland) calling up Elaine of Clyde Diving and find out out if she had any spare spaces on her boat the MV Clutha.

The MV Clutha is an all steel boat, custom built for diving with an on board compressor, along with friendly knowledgeable crew.

Stuart sorted four spaces with Elaine for Saturday which Stewart, Charlie and myself booked in the dash amongst the forum members.

Having sorted my space and waited for the time to come round, I made sure I didn’t have too much to drink on Friday night, left the pub early and headed off home to bed before 10pm.

Saturday 17/03/2007

Set off on an early morning with the alarm going off at 06:45, I packed the car and headed off to Inverkip stopping at Tesco in Greenock for a full cooked breakfast.

I met Stewart & Charlie at Inverkip Marina, we located the Clutha and unfortunately had to carry our gear all the way out on the pontoons as there was no trolleys left to wheel gear easily to the boat.

After the exhausting work, we got settled on the Clutha’s ample dive deck with plenty of room for the 12 divers (including ourselves). Stuart introduced himself and we started chatting to the other divers on board, a couple from Huddersfield and six lads from Leeds & Bradford, everybody pleasant and looking forward to the days diving although the wind was picking up and the rain coming down heavily.

Elaine pointed out that the wind was blowing at force 4 - 5 and was peaking at force 6 occasionally, she doubted very much we could dive anywhere but the Akka.

Everybody agreed this seemed sensible, we all got given mugs of tea and the Clutha with the capable and cheery Elaine at the helm, headed off up the Clyde towards the Akka’s final resting place.

The Akka

The mighty 5409gt. wreck of the Swedish motor vessel Akka is the largest diveable wreck in the Firth of Clyde today. Built in Gothenburg in 1942 she saw service for 14 years until she cast off her mooring ropes at Oxelosound, on Sweden’s eastern coast on the Baltic Sea and set off on 4 April 1956 for what was unknowingly her final journey. Her holds were full with a cargo of iron ore bound for Glasgow.

After 5 days at sea on 9 April 1956 after an uneventful journey she was making way up the Firth of Clyde, journey’s end was almost in sight. At 9.26pm her Captain ordered a change of course to take her away from the Gantocks, a dangerous clump of rocks rising from a depth of 24 metres to break the surface about a mile south of Dunoon.

It was immediately realised that the Akka responded very slowly to her rudder. Unable to steer his ship away from the Gantocks the Captain ordered her engines stopped. Her forward momentum however carried her onto the rocks.

Her hull was rent open for almost half her length. Her engines were put astern however she soon developed a marked list, her hull rapidly flooding. The crew abandoned ship safely into lifeboats and only 3 - 4 minutes after hitting the Gantocks she heeled over to port and with blasts of steam and a large explosion rocking her she slipped beneath the cold dark waters of the Clyde to her watery grave.

Her wreck now is largely intact and sits on an even keel on a sloping muddy seabed. Her bows are in 30 msw, her stern in 40msw.

The Clyde was getting very chopping with waves coming in over the back of the Clutha and Stuart got soaked prior to getting his drysuit all zipped up. Stewart was in the middle of putting his Camera into its housing when the housing got flooded from the waves and put paid to that idea, video of todays dives was not going to be possible.

As we neared the Akka, Elaine gave us all a simple and clear briefing of dive procedures and warned us the wind was picking up so it was probably best not to kick the arse out the dive, keep it short 30 minutes or thereabouts.
Stewart and I where first ready so had the pleasure of jumping into the Clyde first, not a bad privilege seeing as it wasn’t even our trip.

Dive 127: The Akka Start Time: 10:19 Duration: 35 Minutes Max depth: 29 Metres

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I jumped first, stayed positive and finned towards the white buoy which was moored towards the midships of the Akka. Stewart followed and we both gave the OK to descend signal. Torches on, air dumped from my wing down we headed into the darkness and dark it was , not much to see in front of my torch beam, at least it wasn’t silty or cloudy, just dark.

Almost from nowhere the midships of the Akka lit up in my torch beam, we adjusted position and I followed Stewart round the lovely wreck, plenty of exposes superstructure, great swim through via the companion ways and lots of soft corals, dead man’s fingers, a gorgeous red anenome, not much fish to sea, in fact I don’t think I seen any at all, at least the superstructure of the Akka was pretty and kept us entertained.

After twenty minutes of exploring we eventually came across another set of divers and the midships section with the shotline. We both checked our dive time, looked at each other and signalled to descend round the hull to see if we could find something else to explore. This was just great fun all alone, we both released air from our buoyancy devices (I use my suit, Stewart uses his wing) and dropped into the darkness below.

Back down at twenty eight metres, we slowly started making our way up the hull of the Akka with other divers torches illuminating the eerie green water above us as we swam through the companions ways and superstructure. Stewart got momentarily caught on a rope and my Second stage from my side slung cylinder got pulled out the bungee on a part of the wreck. I gathered it into my hands as we made our way back to the moored buoy and our ascent to the surface.

I pointed to Stewart that his Air2 inflation device was bubbling and he disconnected it.

As we made our way up the line, Stewart gave me the gas switching signal, we both completed our change overs effortlessly, first of all changing the gas then secondly setting our computers onto the richer mix, Interestingly we had no deco commitment although my computer switched from a no stop time of 12 minutes to the over 99 minutes sign, clearly illustrating the advantages of using rich mixes to add safety margins, even when not needed for accelerating deco.

As we surfaced the from a great dive on the Akka the MV Clutha was waiting on us, Elaine honked the boat horn and signalled for us to surface swim towards the Clutha, Stewart was struggling due to his cold hands to reconnect his wing Inflator, although he managed it and we both cleared the shot line & buoy to be picked up.

As he other divers started to surface and everybody climbed on board the Clutha’s crew helped us all up the ladders, moved our kit tot he side and looked after us, The lads from Leeds & Bradford shared their chocolate biscuits and sweets (cheers guys!) and Elaine handed out hot soup.

When we berthed at Inverkip Elaine gave us all the bad news that the wind was forecast to pick up to around a Force 8 to 9 and that we wouldnt be heading out again in the afternoon.

Unfortunately this meant trying to find a trolley to take out gear all the way back from one of the furthest away pontoons back to the car park! I figured that if Stewart & Stuart couldn’t find a trolley I may as well just carry my gear back, so I packed my gear, put on my twin set, wing and side slung and carried it half way back to the car park before stumbling on a guy with an empty trolley who had just finished loading his boat!

Lucky me, Charlie helped carry my dry suit while I wheeled the trolley round to the carp park, Charlie took the trolley and I loaded my car, grabbed my dry gear and headed off to the changing area, luckily finding a helpful man with a key to the shower block and toilets!

I got washed, changed and went into the bar, waited half an hour for everybody else to turn up, had a nice cold shandy and wrote my log book up.

Charlie, Stuart, Stewart and the couple from Huddersfield (Fiona & ?) turned up, we all sat had a wee drink and a gab  together and they mentioned they had two spare spaces on a Scapa liveaboard trip for September, we advised them to post the space on conger alley and finnstrokes.

All in all a nice days diving thanks to the wonders of the internet!

I look forward to diving the Clyde again and especially if its from the MV Clutha.

oh and Just for fun, here is a picture I took, uploaded and blogged of Charlie and Stuart while we sat having a drink in the Inverkip Marina.

This entry was posted on Saturday, March 17th, 2007 at 6:29 pm and is filed under Dive Reports, Scuba Diving. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.