Читать книгу Deeper into the Darkness онлайн

152 страница из 184

The following day, it was reveille at 0600 for Dive 2. We were all aboard the Huskyan and ropes were being cast off by 0715. We headed south into Scapa Flow from Stromness before turning to the west to pass out through Hoy Sound. Once through the tidal and often very difficult waters of this sound, the Huskyan turned her head to the north for the run up the coast to the wreck site. The weather was beautiful again – the sky was a crisp clear blue, the sea calm, with a long rolling swell coming in from the Atlantic.

Whereas yesterday the task had been to establish a fixed downline near the stern of the wreck and explore it from there, today we would deploy a second shotline on the seabed near the bow and start our exploration from this area. The trapeze could then be deployed on either fixed shot as required each day – divers would know exactly where they would arrive at on the wreck and it would assist becoming familiar with the wreck.

As with the day before, we arrived on site a couple of hours before slack water. The buoys from the fixed shotline deployed at the stern the day before were still floating in position, marking where the wreck lay. Arriving well in advance of slack water like this gave ample time for Ben and Emily to get the boat positioned just off the bow and drop a second weighted shotline to the seabed. This was a fully munitioned warship as well as being a sensitive war grave, and we did not want to damage it in any way with a careless shot deployment. As with the placing of the shot on the seabed near the stern yesterday, Ben and Emily spent a considerable amount of time getting a feel for the exact positioning of the wreck far below before the signal was given to drop the shot.