Saturday 24/05/2003BACK TO TOP

Got up at 8 and went to the Stavanger Fjord restaurant for the as much as you can eat breakfast, which was rather nice really. One by one the others joined us, until everyone but Ricky was up and happy.

After brekky (which lasted about 90 minutes in all!) we went back to Frances’ and my cabin where we watched a video on the happenings in Norway in World War Two. After that, we put on some of the video than Ian shot in Narvik two years previously, until they came along and chucked us out of the cabins.

We watched the fjords slip by as we cruised into Bergen yippee!!

There we had some faff getting the van round to the JaneR as there was a festival of some description going on and lots of roads were blocked. Eventually we met up and the vast quantity of kit unloaded.

Then came the problem of parking the van. There is nowhere in Bergen you can park a van 2.4m high. In the end Ryan and James took it to the airport (15 miles away) where it was left for the week.

Then we were off!

90 minutes down the fjord and we dived the wreck of the Bärenfels, in 36m of water. Frances lost her torch on the entry, although fortunately it was recovered again, albeit with a knackered bulb (expensive!) and battery connector.

I dived with Jeremy and had a pleasant time looking around the heap of twisted metal that is left on the bottom. There is still lots of brass lying around. The viz at the surface was appalling due to the algal bloom, but it cleared completely by 15m and it was dark and clear on the wreck. The sight of the divers with all their HID beams around the wreck was quite surreal.

We surfaced after only 30 minutes as Gordon needed to get motoring and we had tea while steaming to Fedje.

We got to Fedje late – about ten. It was still light and we stood around on deck drinking G & T while Ian filled the cylinders. Eventually we cleared off to find a bar, but had no success so we returned to the boat. Some had a second go at finding a bar, but most folk were knackered and went to bed!

Sunday 25/05/2003 BACK TO TOP

Got up at 8:30 and had a bowl of cereal before doing the 20minute chug to the wreck of the Kilbulk. Here we were put in on a post with a bit of tide running across it. Simon and Jane went first but Ricky and I soon overtook them and hit seabed at about 5m. This was clear and kelpy. We follow the bottom South, with it getting deeper and steeper all the while. Eventually we were going down steep gullies with it getting quite dark. Finally at around 30m a black shape loomed ahead of us and there was the wreck. It was lying upside-down; the seabed was about 38m and the top of the wreck at about 30. We went round to the stern, which was fairly broken, here Ricky and I swam into the wreck. This was quite large with plenty of room. We went in to about 30m before turning. I was about to hit deco and there wasn’t anything inside to look at anyway. We then followed the wreck on the outside round to the bow – here there was a huge dent where it had obviously run into something. There were further scrapes down the side, too.

We then followed the cliff back up; I pissed off Ricky by doing deep stops (21 & 13m), after which I had cleared. He had to do a further 3 minutes at 3.

We re-filled cylinders while steaming down the fjord to the wreck of the Frankenwald. This had a shot line straight onto the stern. As we descended the shot you could tell this was going to be a stunning dive. The sea was a light green colour and looked very clear. Soon the shape of the wreck appeared beneath us. It was lying upright and mostly intact on the seabed. The deck was at about 25m. The viz was 20m or so and it was excellent to float off the wreck and take in the picture. We also did a bit of swimming through the passages, eventually coming out into the engine room with all its machinery about us.

We continued to swim forward until deco meant we had to return to the mid mast, where we ascended. This mast comes up to 5m and was covered in squidgies that looked very pretty – the sun had obviously come out and the scene was very bright. Streams of bubbles pouring up the mast showed that there was a load of other divers following. Again I did my stops deep (18 and 12m), and then had to wait while Ricky did his at 3. On surfacing it was lovely. The sun was shining, the scenery was gorgeous and all in all it was very pleasant. Marvellous.

After 30 minutes sunbathing (!) we motored up the fjords for a couple of hours. The scenery became more and more spectacular – the classic deep fjord shape. We also went through some small channels between rocks – enough space to go through but not enough to be able to turn around in!

We arrived at the Havda and we were all ready kitted up. There was no shot on this one so I took in a line with Ricky – we just plummeted when Gordon gave the signal. We landed on rock – but only a few metres below us and perfectly visible in the clear water was the wreck. It was lying on its side on 25m or so of water; we swam over the hull to the deck and looked for somewhere to tie the line into. I picked a robust looking rib and tied in.

Then it was time to explore :o) We were at the bow of the ship – the anchor chains were clearly visible. The sandy bottom had debris strewn all over it. The scene looked more tropical, but this was one of the colder dives (7 deg C). As we swan toward the stern I found a plate that was nearly complete, with inscription on it. It was nice to look at, but I put it back. By this time the other pairs had joined us and there were divers all over the place. Due to the excellent viz there was no crowding though – it was easy just to float off the wreck and watch the world go by :o)

At the stern we went under the hull and saw where the prop had been – but was no longer. The rudder hung down, covered in dead-man’s fingers. We went back along the wreck, staying high to avoid deco until I saw a likely looking hole and disappeared into it. It led into the engine room, the workings all laid out before me. I turned round and came out, and then had to dash down the wreck to catch up with Ricky, who was now coming back top find out where I was. Having been re-united, we went to the shot and surfaced. We had no stops to do, but did some safety anyway.

It was then time for G&T on the foredeck, anchored in the absolute calm, watching the sun over the sea and rocks. What an excellent way to finish off the diving for the day :o)

We then steamed to Askvoll. After tea we were too knackered to go out so the gin took another battering before we retired to bed.

Monday 26/05/2003 BACK TO TOP

A leisurely start today saw us leaving Askvoll at 8:30 and having breakfast while steaming to the Wilheim. This is an enormous cargo vessel lying on her port side. The bow comes up to about 12m, the stern lay in 70m. The shot line led straight to the bow, but the most interesting bits were midships by the bridge. Alex and I went in taking the end of a line with us to attach to the bridge so everyone else could get straight on the fun bits. Down the shot line there was the usual poor viz, with the distinct halocline in the first metre or two. As we hit the wreck at 12m the viz was still pretty poor at 5m and I was wondering if this would really be the stonking dive that it is meant to be. We progressed down the deck, towing the line as we went. As we went through 25m the viz suddenly cleared. The vast scale of the wreck became apparent as the huge bridge was visible before us.
We went over the bridge, until at 35m I found the davits that used to hold a lifeboat where I tied the line into the wreck.
Then it was time to look around. The funnel was clear beneath us, and slightly to the stern of us. As we floated down the deck the spectacle was fantastic. Floating 5m off the wreck, at 50m depth, the seabed at 60 was clearly visible, and also the davits for the lifeboat above at 35m as well. There was no need to go looking into the many holes in the wreck – just to float there and shine the torch around was amazing. We went round the bridge area and looked into the windows, into the clear black interior. Sadly it did not take long for the stops to start racking up and we started edging up the wreck. My computer was already showing my first stop would be 30m for 2 minutes. This was easy to do as we swam forward up the deck, looking into the gaping cargo holds, which looked like cathedrals inside.
Before long it was back to the shot and up to complete our decompression. The advantage of the deep stops now became clear as I only had a further 5 minutes to do, while Alex had 20 minutes. Oh well, it was a good chance to sup some additional nitrox and clear out those pesky nitrogen bubbles.
It wasn’t long before all the other pairs (who had descended down the line I laid) joined us on the bow shotline.

After this I needed to refill the pony, which kept us occupied until we had lunch at a gorgeous little place called Askroven.
After lunch, a walk and some sleep we went off to the Inger III. This was only 20 minutes out of Askroven. This was not shotted at all so me, Alex and Ricky all jumped in and did a free-water descent to 20m. We landed plumb in the wreck so Ricky sent his blob up as a reference for everyone else. This wreck was fairly well broken, although still with a few large sections remaining. We did a little swim through over some bits or machinery, and then went off South to look for the bow. We swam down the side of the wreckage and shortly came to the fairly intact bow in 32m of water. The hawse pipes and anchor winches were all there to be seen. I was getting fairly cold by this time as I had obtained a hole in the right leg of my drysuit. I have no idea where it came from; but where the water was coming in it felt like someone was pressing icecubes on to my leg. I could also feel my entire right boot filling up nicely with water.
We went back up the other side of the wreck looking at a while variety of bits and pieces. I got excited when I thought I could recognise the swim through we did and thought we could find Ricky’s bag again, but I was mistaken. Alex sent up his bag and we ascended up that. Once again Alex was the deco king and we were kept hanging around for ages waiting for his computers to decompress.
Back on the boat I was keen to get my soggy undersuit off so I stripped off and dashed downstairs for dry clothes.
Ian went in again to retrieve Ricky’s blob. What a surprise.
It was then off to Florø for the night, while I got to work on my drysuit with my bicycle repair kit. We had dinner in Florø and then went to the floating bar for some very expensive beer. It was a good night.

Tuesday 27/05/2003BACK TO TOP

Another leisurely start. We got up, had our porage, and then wandered around Florø. This didn’t take long and so went back to the JaneR and watched while Gordon refilled the O2 cylinders. It was gone one o’clock by the time we left, we had lunch under way and then returned to the Wilheim – a wreck of legends :o)
It was quite rolling when we got there – the strong Southerly wind was bringing in rollers off the Norwegian Sea. We kitted up and then plummeted down the shot line that I had laid the day before. I tried to move the fixing point to a more permanent place but was unable to drag the line and buoy to where the old line had been. I did not waste much time on this – there was a dive waiting :o)
I was with Ryan – we dropped off the side of the wreck and sank down to 55m. The viz didn’t seem half as good as the previous day which was a bit disappointing. We seemed to all follow the deck aft as a big group – at one point I clearly saw Daf turn to his buddy and give the “I am narcosed" sign. This seemed entirely reasonable – we were the wrong side of 50m after all. Aft of the bridge area was the huge cargo loading area, with assorted machinery and gubbins sticking out. We didn’t go back far before hitting stops – at which point it was time to turn and return to the shot. I went to the top of the deck at this point – it seemed silly to not minimize any stops. Back at the bridge area I had to do my first stop (30m), this we did while finning forward toward the bow to surface up the other shot. I swam into the cargo hold – there was nothing in there, just a big empty space, but it was pretty looking out at the other divers silhouetted against the openings.
Back at the shot I had to do another 18m stop, during which Ryan and I swam around, trying to hide in the bit of kelp that was growing there.
Decompressing up the line was a bit tight – there were eight of us up the line. There was at least one floaty moment when people suddenly went too shallow and there was a mass scramble to get deeper again.
Back on the boat it was pleasant to sit and relax in the sunshine and look at the lovely scenery. The snow on the mountains around was clearly visible and it was great.
We went back down the fjord again to near Askvoll where we were to do a scallop dive.
< This next bit never happened>
I borrowed Jane’s rebreather and Ian took me in for a bit of a play. Jane installed me into it, so as usual I was still ready ages before Ian. We jumped in and despite me wearing Ryan’s weightbelt I still bobbed straight back to the surface. Mind you, the wing was still full so this wasn’t too surprising. Ian started lecturing me on what to do but it got boring so I dumped my gas and sank out of earshot. On the way down I had to keep adding dil as I kept running out of breathable gas. Once on the bottom one of the disadvantages of rebreathers became apparent as the anchor landed only 2 metres in front of us. On the bottom my biggest task (apart from checking ppO2, obviously!) was to maintain my buoyancy. This was a bit of a struggle – at one point I was ploughing into the seabed, next I had to fin downwards to prevent me from surfacing. Things got a bit easier as the dive progressed, but only a little. Ian periodically checked my ppO2, despite me trying to hide them from him. We did 50 minutes swimming around looking for scallops (I found two) before it really was getting a bit dull and we surfaced. The ascent went ok – I dumped air from the loop by breathing out through my nose. On the way up Ian saw the anchor line behind me so we swam over to it and came up it to the boat. Back on board Jane fussed over me to make sure her rebreather was ok, which was rather nice. I hope when my one turns up I get a Jane to look after me :o)
< End of bit that never happened>
We then had dinner at anchor, which was rather pleasant before steaming across the fjord to Askvoll for the night.

Wednesday 28/05/2003 BACK TO TOP

We got up fairly early, 7:30, as this morning’s wreck was only five minutes from Askvoll pier. When Gordon thought we were more or less ready we slipped the lines and went over to the Tyrifjord, which lay in 36m of water. It was Ricky and Jeremy’s turn to play with the string this morning – Gordon dropped the shot in the wreck, they then went down the shot, and disconnected the weight from the line. Ricky then sent the weight up on a bag, while Jeremy tied the line into the wreck. When we saw the bag surface that was then our cue to go down the line, as we promptly did.
I was diving with Ian. As I lost buoyancy at the start of my descent my first mistake of the day became apparent. I had failed to connect my drysuit feed. As I was descending I was gaining momentum and my suit was squeezing more and more. I was clearing my ears more or less constantly to keep them comfortable. I had been following Ian, but that didn’t last long and I soon passed him at a rate of knots. I apologised as I shot past. I just about managed to connect the feed up and get some air in the suit as I crashed into the bottom in a cloud of silt. Oops. However, the problem was now fixed and we continued to explore the wreck. It lies upright, the bow section is well smashed around, but the stern is more or less intact. Everything was fairly silty, but the bollards with rope still coiled around were visible, as was the railing around the stern of the ship, and a rather nice ship’s wheel. We met Simon here happily photographing this. We went underneath the stern, but no prop was visible – the whole underside was buried in silt anyway.
We continued back forward, passing the shot line, and into the broken up section. There really wasn’t much point in looking around this bit so we turned the dive and ascended the shot. On the ascent we met most of the other divers – Ryan seemed to have the same decompression schedule as me as he was always exactly where I wanted to be on the line. There were many many jellyfish around us as we decompressed – to the extent that on occasion they would obscure the view of your computer!
Back on deck breakfast was served in the warm bright sunshine, which was rather nice.
It was then a 2 hour steam South to the Ferndale and Parat. This was located off a tiny island in the middle of a narrow channel.
I went in this with Ian again. The descent was more successful this time, as I’d remembered to connect everything up properly. The shot took us on to the wreck of the Ferndale at about 18m. This wreck was plummeting off at a steep angle. The viz was a fairly reasonable 5m or so.
As we went through 35m the viz cleared dramatically though. Beneath us the outline of the stern of the ship was clear, and beneath this the Parat was completely visible off on the bottom of the fjord. The viz was 50+m. Ian went off down to the left, and I went down to the right. I was hovering at 50 ish metres, the Parat beneath me. Ian was slightly shallower, more than 20 metres away from me, and completely clear against the side of the fjord behind him. The sight was nothing less than awesome. Soon Simon and Jane swam past us and went to the stern of the Parat, lighting up the wreck as they went. They floated off the stern and I heard Jane exclaim “this is bloody amazing”, to which Simon replied “it’s fantastic”. They weren’t joking – it was a stunning spectacle. Their voices were perfectly audible in the calm, clear waters. I was sure I could even pick out Simon’s Geordie accent.
The Parat was standing upright, and although the deck was fairly rotten away, it was otherwise fairly intact. The mast still stood upright. It was incredible to look along it, and then back at the stern of the Ferndale, towering over the Parat. Both sides of the fjord were clearly visible around you. Most beautiful.
Due to the depth we did not stay there long, so then finned back to the Ferndale, over the railing and worked our way gently back up the wreck. At 18m we went over the side to find the swim-through beneath the wreck. This was easy to find, and we went through looking at the rusticles hanging from the wreck, along with an assortment of squidgies. Out the other side we went back on top of the wreck, to complete our decompression, while swimming gently around the rock that the Ferndale lies against.
This has to rate as one of my best dives ever. I look forward to doing it again tomorrow :o)
After the dive we had lunch at anchor and then sat enjoying the sun while we de-fizzed enough to be able to do our third dive of the day. Although it was sunny and warm the wind was steadily building all the afternoon.
We went just a very short way up the fjord to dive the Solvang III. A lot of people bailed this but it seemed silly to have come all this way and not dive…
The shot line had already been laid by the divers on Gaelic Rose, which we descended. Before long we came across the mast, so swapped on to this and followed it down on to the bow. We had a poke around there, then dropped off down to the seabed. This was only about 20m. We followed the side of the wreck down to the stern, and then came off the wreck and followed the fjord down. This was dropping off in a series of steep steps in a most impressive fashion. We only went down to 30 before turning and returning to the wreck. It was quite an impressive sight to come up from underneath the stern and see it looming over you – the other four divers (Jane, James, Jeremy and Ricky in his wetsuit) were illuminating the wreck in a very pretty fashion. We swam up the other side of the wreck and I decided I’d fizzed myself up enough for the day and signalled to Ian that I would ascend. He went off with the others and I went up the shot – I stopped at 6m to finish my 80%, not because I had any stops to do, just to knock back the nitrogen absorption.

When we’d all surfaced we pottered around the corner to an old sawmill near Skopa. This was a very beautiful spot and we enjoyed sitting out with our gin and tonics while Andy rustled up our tea.
Noe and James spent an hour replacing the wrist seals on Adrian's drysuit.
After tea (and a few more gins) we went for a walk up the mountain – we followed the stream up to a small lake, where Noe managed to get her shoe stuck in the bog and cover herself in mud. James turned down £60 to strip off and swim in the lake. It was a lovely little spot. We then wandered back to the boat where James stripped off and jumped in the fjord – and he did it for free! This inspired other folk and in the end Ryan, Jane, Noe, Daf, Ian, Andy and Gregg all went in. It was most amusing to hear people after they surfaced gasping for breath. That’ll be cold then!

Thursday 29/05/2003BACK TO TOP

We woke up to pouring rain this morning. Good, consistent, steady rain, driven along by a steady wind. Marvellous.
After breakfast it was straight round the corner to hit the Ferndale and Parat again. With the rain and early hour it was going to be a lot darker this time – but we were all looking forward to it. I went in with Jane, we quickly went down to the stern of the Ferndale in 40m and it was indeed a lot darker. It was just as clear, but you couldn’t see as far due to the low light. We dropped off to the Parat, and spent a very pleasant few minutes looking at it a bit more closely than yesterday. Simon went off the stern to get some general photos of it – it was quite a sight to see him disappearing off into the black, looking tiny off in the distance. It was a bit of a “Big Blue” moment. All of us made it down on to the Parat this time – lots of little divers with their bright torches swimming around the wreck. Excellent. I went into stops before long, hardly surprising really, and we started our ascent up the wreck. I tried to entice Jane to swim off underneath the Ferndale but she wouldn’t do so: boo. Back at 6m we entertained ourselves amongst the kelp while waiting for those pesky stops to disappear.
Back on the surface the rain and wind were still there – it was cool to bob around in the fjord looking up at the water pouring off the cliffs, waiting for Gordon to come and pick us up.
Once back on the boat we started steaming south, watching the huge waterfalls that had sprang up overnight cascading down the sides of the fjord. It was quite a rough sea journey – Gordon took us to this amazing place called Hardbakke for lunch – this was down some small channels amongst the rocks, with little (and not so little) houses dotted on the cliffs. Eventually the channel opens up to a small harbour, completely sheltered against the wind (but not the rain sadly). We had a quiet lunch here before going out for a battering to dive the Frankenwald again.

I appeared to have broken Jane on the first dive as she baled this. I ended up going in with Ian. I guessed it might be quite a big dive.

We plummeted down the shot to the top of the mast, then down the mast to the deck at 30m. Then it was a happy 20 minutes inside the holds, along the passageways, through the accommodation and shower blocks, through the engine room until eventually we popped out at the stern. The depth had been down to 40m for this, and the profile less than perfect so I had built up some reasonable stops doing this. We met James and Ricky at the stern, and watched them messing around the flagstaff off the stern. I then hovered up off the wreck to reduce any further deco (the Nitek was showing 37 minutes of stops by now) while we made our way back to the bow. There we found Gordon’s shotline as promised, up which we made our ascent. It was good to be able to swap to 80% and press the “no stops please” button to reduce the stops to something more reasonable.
Back on board it was back to filling cylinders on the rolling deck as we made our way back south again – through narrow and pretty channels amongst the rocks. Very pleasant. We steamed for a good few hours during the evening in order to get much closer to Bergen. Finally we tied up alongside the Gaelic Rose and a bit of partying went on through the night.

Friday 30/05/2003BACK TO TOP

The early start this morning did not happen. It was gone nine before we were chugging our way on again. After breakfast we stopped at a drop-off by Mjaatveitstö, some 6 miles north of Bergen where everyone but Ryan and Alex dived. It was very murky at the surface, then cleared up to about 10m viz down to 20 metres. After that the viz just opened up completely, 30+m at least. We dropped off down an almost vertical cliff to 60m and hung there a while, watching the other pairs descending the cliff face around us. It was spectacular. There were huge anemones and all sorts on the cliff, which kept Ian amused at least.
Back at the surface it was a resounding thumbs up for the wall dive. The word “Dorothea” was mentioned more than once. Simon put in some practice for his Malta trip to HMS Russell by going to 85 metres.

We had a quiet hour to de-fizz a little, then Ryan, Ian, James and I went in for the last dive just off where the boat was parked in a little bay. It was only about 10m deep beneath the boat, but soon dropped off and again we went down a vertical cliff, we stopped at around 55m this time. We were in a bit of a bowl with the cliff surrounding us on three sides, which was quite spectacular.

Then it was lunch and back to Bergen. Boo!

Back in Bergen Ryan and James went to collect the bus, while we cleared all the kit up and got it ready to pack in the van. It didn’t take long to create a large pile of cylinders and breavers and bags on the quayside. This was all then piled into the bus when it appeared. We then had some time to sit in the sunshine and enjoy a gin and tonic before dinner.

After dinner it was party time! We first went to a bar called Macumbu and watched the sun go down over the harbour, then moved on to the Scotsman. We did a couple of rounds upstairs there (£65 a round) before Jane couldn’t contain herself any longer and we had to go downstairs to where the dancing was. The music was supplied by one bloke with a synthesiser and microphone and was great! At least I thought so – I’ve never got to dance to Pink Floyd in a nightclub before :o)
One of the more amusing parts of this was the look of absolute shock on the barman’s face when Simon asked for 12 beers. This was obviously outside the barman’s comprehension and he refused. Eventually we had to order 3 beers for Simon and 3 beers for me, and then do that twice.

This is my dive log. Others will have got different depth/times. I certainly did not bottom out all the dives – deeper depths were attained.

 

Dive #	Date	Time	Max Depth	Time	Site
1	24/05	18:48	29m	30mins	Bärenfels
2	25/05	8:44	37m	35mins	Kilbulk
3	25/05	11:49	36m	33mins	Frankenwald
4	25/05	16:43	27m	31mins	Havda
5	26/05	9:04	51m	49mins	Wilhiem
6	26/05	14:53	33m	42mins	Inger Tre
7	27/05	13:42	55m	36mins	Wilhiem
8	27/05	17:20	16m	51mins	nr Askvoll
9	28/05	7:47	37m	37mins	Tyrifjord
10	28/05	11:44	52m	35mins	Ferndale and Parat
11	28/05	16:18	29m	34mins	Solvang III
12	29/05	8:43	56m	41mins	Ferndale and Parat
13	29/05	14:57	41m	53mins	Frankenwald
14	30/05	9:43	61m	32mins	Drop-off at Mjaatveitstö
15	30/05	11:58	53m	30mins	Drop-off at Mjaatveitstö