Читать книгу Into the Abyss. Diving to Adventure in the Liquid World онлайн

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Once our time on the bottom was almost up, we retraced our steps back through the mangled mess of steel. I was very impressed at my dive buddy’s precision in difficult surroundings in being able to navigate straight back to the same gully where we had entered.

Once back ashore we had to struggle up the steep path cut in the cliffs to the cars high above us before cracking open flasks of tea and chatting about the wreck. This had been my first taste of wreck diving and although there was no recognisable ship shape left to the vessel, the submerged devastation had been fascinating. I tried to envisage the awesome power of winter easterly storms that could pulverise and reduce a large ship to pieces no larger than a dining room table. No one knew the name of the vessel.

Once back home, in the coming week’s I read up on a few publications about shipwrecks in the north of Scotland. In an old dive magazine I came across an article on shipwrecks around these shores. Interestingly, there was brief mention of the SS Chicago, which had run aground right beneath Slains Castle in 1894. She was a large vessel and the more I read the more I realised that this was surely the identity for this wreck. This was my first taste of amateur wreck detective work and soon I was regaling the club with the identity of the wreck and the story of its sinking.