Cat shark at Out Skerries
Crayfish at Out Skerries
Day 2 – Fish Factory
Lunokods-1 , a Latvian fish factory ship or Klondiker as they are commonly referred to , succumbed to a storm back in 1993 . It was driven stern first into a narrow gully below Bressay Lighthouse . The stern section is still intact , and follows the slope down to 18m . The 30m bow section broke off and lies at 45m . The skipper described this site as being ‘ Shetland Deep ’, meaning over 40 metres but in calm , clear water .
The decent visibility allowed you to see a great deal of the site from the bottom . After leaving the shotline , we took a few photos looking up the bow section , then followed the debris field up the slope . There ’ s lots of deck machinery , and the refrigeration coils are still visible and clear of silt . Mindful of deco obligations , we spent the last part of our dive doing our safety stop on a colourful reef .
In the afternoon we dived a shallow reef off Out Skerries photographing dogfish , and searching for crayfish .
Day 3 – Prime Plaice
Today we dived the Jane , a Swedish steamship that sunk in 1923 after striking rocks near the island of Sound Gruney , lying port side down on a sandy bottom at 20m . The wreck is slowly collapsing in on itself , but the propeller and rudder are still intact . A hand-over-hand pull down the shot-line was needed in the strong current , and brought us straight to the prop . We got stuck in like limpets , took several shots of the prop . I let the unrelenting current sweep me to the bow , where a gaping hole could be seen in the hull , perhaps responsible for its demise . I managed a few shots of the anchor , then we drifted off in the current while deploying the SMB . South of Yell we did a drift dive on a site called Burra
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