Trip Report: Ireland Malin Head wrecks July 22 to 29

Patto_chan

Hi all,
Myself and a few friends enjoyed an excellent week of rebreather diving off of Malin Head in the north of Ireland (Co. Donegal) last week. Given the occasionally capricious nature of the North Atlantic and Irish summer weather we were very fortunate to have flat calm seas and sunshine every day.
And we made the most of it.

Sat. 22nd July
Morning - S.S. Cumberland - 55m
A steamer torpedoed in 1940 I think. An enjoyable dive around the boiler area. Benign conditions. Viz 20m+

Sun. 23rd July
Morning - U218 - 56m
A cracker of a dive. An 'Operation Deadlight' boat, fully intact except some damage to the knife edge bow where it impacted on the seabed. 45 deg list to port. A type VII-D minelayer (according to u.boat net - U218) with the mine shafts just aft of the conning tower. Even with Inspiration and 7L bailout tanks the tubes were big enough to swim through. Only a few of these minelayer boats were built and I think there is only 1 other diveable wreck of this type known (in Canadian waters).
Barrie 'Spielberg' Law accompanied us with his new camera. See the following link for a brief u218 video clip.

Afternoon - U861 - 43m
2nd attempt to get on this u-boat. Closer to shore but a slack water dive only. Another Deadlight boat and the wreck is broken into several pieces. Spent some time running around the central section.

Mon. 24th July
Justicia - 69m
A 30,000 ton liner comandeered for troopship duty in WW1 and sunk by repeated torpedo attacks in 1915. 20+ miles out from Malin Head.
An immense wreck but badly broken up so I found it difficult to understand the layout of the site. The shot was in the fo'csle, bridge area - near the bow. Viz was good (20m+ maybe?) but was gloomy due to plankton layer at 20m. Still enough light to see without torches. Left the shot in place to return the next day.

Tue. 25th July
Justicia - 67m
Dived the fo'csle area again on the same shot. Saw more of the site but still didn't get as far as the bow. Would need more dives to become familiar with a site this large.

Wed. 26th July
Empire Heritage - 67m
WW2 merchantman sunk by u-boat. Another excellent dive. Also 20+ miles out from land. Not tidal. Shot was in the middle of the Sherman tanks near the mast. The tanks were tossed aorund as though they were discarded dinky toys. Counted 8 of them close to the shot.
Viz again 20m+. During an ascent stop at 30m you could see a definite brown plankton layer in the water, dark but clear below and lovely clear blue above.

Thu. 27th July
Took a rest day to off-gas but went out on the boat to watch others dive the Audacious - WWI Dreadnought sunk by a mine. 55m to top of wreck.

Fri. 26th July
U89 - 59m
Quite a distance out, 25 miles? Conditions were good but wind the previous night had left some swell. Dropped down the shot to find it had dragged off the wreck but was close enough to see. This was a WWI uboat sunk in action (again see uboat.net-u89). Rammed aft of the conning tower. Swarming with fish. Surprisingly, we still felt surge on the wreck from wave action above. Another wreck I would like to visit again.

We were all diving Inspirations. I was using my new Vision electronics. All units performed flawlessly. Because we are still new to these depths we limited our bottom times to 20 to 25 minutes with total in-water times of 60 to 75 minutes.

On all wrecks the viz was excellent - by Irish standards. Even at the bottom there was sufficient ambient light to get by without torches. After the plankton bloom disperses in another month or so I believe the viz will get even better.


We used the local dive operator Divenorth who also provided accomodation.

World class diving.
And there are many other wrecks we didn't have time to do (the 'gold ship' Laurentic and many other Deadlight uboats).