Читать книгу Deeper into the Darkness онлайн

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The passage up the west coast was beautiful on this first day. It was sunny, with little wind and the water seemed relatively smooth; it was however a little deceptive, as a languid Atlantic swell was still rolling in gently from the north-west, the boat slowly rising and falling a few metres as the swell passed beneath us.

As we arrived on site, we soon picked up the wreck on the echo sounder. The tall Kitchener Memorial Tower stood prominently just 1.5 miles away on the high cliffs of Marwick Head – very poignantly reminding us of the tragedy that had occurred in this very spot 100 years almost to the day.

We were aware from previous visits that the wreck lay in a roughly north-west/south-east attitude, with her bow to the north. We had decided that the first day’s shot would be dropped on the seabed just off the stern, which was the most intact area.

The shotline would be floated initially with just a few rigid round fishermen’s floats. As it was still an hour or two to go until slack water, we knew that these would be swept under by the tide – that was the idea – they would rise again as the tide dropped off towards slack water, an easy visual indicator of what was happening. If we had stuck a big danbuoy on the downline it would have remained on the surface, but likely would have been dragged down current by the tide, dragging the shot away from the wreck. There was no room for error.