The weather this morning was much better than yesterday, and after Marlene’s breakfast (I made the porridge), we went to the boat and set out for the wreck of the Coln II. Once again, a beautiful dive with stunningly clear water and plenty of the small types of wildlife to be found. The highlight was Nicola attempting to kneel on a scorpion fish that he didn’t see, which sped off in the direction of my camera.


Adrian managed to lose his DSMB. The boat found it floating happily in the middle of the flow and rescued it. Richard’s drysuit seemed to be doing a better job of letting water in, than keeping it out.

I decided to duck out of the second dive specifically to take photos of divers going in and out of the water.

At lunchtime, we moored up at Lyness again, but this time went to the museum. On the way there, Chris, Steve (with a vaguely Yorkshire tone to his accent), Dameon and I met up with a disgruntled Adrian stomping away; the Museum Curator had chucked him out for going inside in his dry suit. Chris and Steve pouted and commiserated with Adrian, they too in their drysuits, whilst Dameon and I shot inside and had a good look around. We encountered Joss and Richard and Nicola already there. Nicola got told off very quickly for climbing an unauthorised ladder in order to take pictures. Whilst it’s positioning was such that it was clear that the ladder was not to be climbed, there was nothing to actually say it couldn’t. But since the curator also ran the only cafe for miles, he won.

The wind picked up for the afternoon, the waves getting choppy and only six dived the Karlsruhe. Which was a little disappointing as I’d wanted to get pics of everyone, but what the hey, better to dive safe. The six who dived came back up to tell the rest of us how absolutely brilliant it was.

We decided to head straight back to the house, but this time the Royal Hotel bar distracted us for a pit stop.

We had access to a minibus owned by the dive centre, and some of us Sdecided to take it into Kirkwall for food in the evening. This minibus was a top of the range brand spanking new effort at a mere twenty years old, and completely fully functioning. Apart from the speedo not working. And the doors not closing. And bits of the body work falling off. And the oil burning. And the tyres weren’t fully flat yet. And there was the ominous squeak from somewhere under the flat spare tyre. And who needs a fuel gauge anyway? But the lights worked well, and the brakes worked in a limited fashion.

In Kirkwall, we followed diversion signs that didn’t lead anywhere, yet managed to give us a highly educational tour of the place, and challenged Steve’s abilities to squeak the minibus around very tight corners without taking out any walls. We headed for the local Indian Restaurant where much laughter was had. Mostly at the expense of those who weren’t there, naturally.

Nicola and Daniella opted to go to the Italian church instead. Which closed about thirty seconds before they arrived. Dameon didn’t like Indian and decided on a fish supper instead back at the house. Dameon’s unfortunate flatulence was still continuing and seemed to be contagious, with, according to unnamed sources, Chris, Richard, Joss and Adrian joining him in a most unholy chorus. Dameon also suffered from unfounded rumours concocted over curry and beer.

We survived the trip back, thanks to Steve’s driving, and parked the bus more or less in a parking box. We took an executive decision that two wheels out of four in the box were sufficient.