As we headed to Kyle, on our right hand side, the azure waters of Loch Alsh as it opened into the Inner Sound, were dotted by small islands so typical of west coast scenery. Across Loch Alsh, I could see the shores of Skye, a name I had only ever seen written in childhood adventure books recounting the romantic and daring deeds of the 1745 Jacobite rebellion. In the distance the majestic mountains of the Cuillin Hills on Skye itself reared up, black, foreboding and ominous, with a seeming perpetual cloud system hovering over them.
Our procession snaked its way to the outskirts of Kyle, the old hands leading us down to the ferry slip where the cars towing boats, turned around and then reversed down the slip until the sterns of the two Zodiacs were almost at the water line. Handbrakes were applied, engines went off and the two boat drivers jumped out of their cars and deftly started stripping off lighting boards and securing straps, readying the boats for sea.
The other divers and myself busied ourselves, getting air tanks, weights and heavy gear out of the cars and ferrying it all down to the edge of the slip, where the Zodiacs were to be tied up once launched.
In what seemed like just a few minutes the boats were ready and the boat cox’s were getting into their wet suits - seemingly able to prep a boat for sea and yet still be ahead of me getting rigged up in their own dive kit.
Very soon a cluster of divers rigged in wet suits and some in the new hotly debated dry suits stood around both Zodiacs as the drivers reversed their cars down the slip towards the water. The sterns of the boats went into the water and the trailers were reversed down into the water right up to the their axles, their wheels part submerged. Attendant divers then pulled at the Zodiacs, floating them easily off the trailers, and moving them around to the side of the slip where they were tied off.
The remaining divers started loading their gear into the two boats as the cars and trailers surged forward, pulling the trailers out behind in a white wash of water at the trailer wheels. The cars and trailers got parked out of harm’s way leaving the slip clear for any other boats to be launched.
As we waited at the slip for the cox’s to return, we talked excitedly about the Port Napier. She lies on her starboard side in about 20 metres of water just 300 yards offshore from an uninhabited part of Skye - facing towards the Scottish mainland. It is only a short ride out from Kyle in a dive boat, of some 10 minutes.
With such a large, substantially intact, wreck lying in relatively shallow water so close to mainland Scotland she has become one of Scotland’s most popular wreck sites, drawing countless divers to her slowly rotting remains each year. She is regarded as a safe wreck dive - because of the relatively shallow depth and also because the 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