Scotland
Scapa Flow
The seabed holds a German navy, scuttled in 1919 — divers swim through drowned battleships.
A German fleet lies on the seabed of Scapa Flow — scuttled in 1919, gun turrets now pointing down into the dark, explored by divers who swim along upturned dreadnought hulls. Above the water, causeways built by Italian prisoners of war carry today's roads between the islands.
Scapa Flow is a natural harbour enclosed by the Orkney Islands, the Royal Navy's principal base through both world wars. In June 1919 Rear Admiral Ludwig von Reuter ordered the interned German High Seas Fleet scuttled — most of the seventy-four warships went down in a single act of defiance, the greatest self-destruction of shipping in history. Seven major warships — three battleships and four cruisers — still rest on the seabed, making this one of the world's premier wreck-diving grounds, dived only with proper qualification and local knowledge. The Churchill Barriers, thrown up in wartime to seal the eastern approaches after a U-boat sank HMS Royal Oak, now carry the road south, and beside them stands the Italian Chapel on Lamb Holm — two Nissen huts transformed by prisoner-artists into a painted Renaissance interior, one of Orkney's most moving monuments. The Scapa Flow Museum at Lyness holds the story for those who stay dry.
Solo
Descending onto an upturned battleship where gun turrets point at the seabed — adventure diving at its most historically charged.
Friends
A group dive trip working different wrecks each day and comparing notes at the surface — wartime history discovered underwater bonds a dive team like nothing else.
- Three battleships and four cruisers of the 1919 scuttling still rest on the seabed.
- Divers swim beneath upturned dreadnoughts whose turrets point into the dark.
- Italian POWs built the Churchill Barriers that now carry the islands' roads.
- The Italian Chapel turns two Nissen huts into a painted Renaissance interior.
Orkney steak and ale pie after a dive through a century-old wreck.
Orkney fudge and Stromness ale — the harbour town's sweetness and salt.
Islas Murciélago
Costa Rica
Descend into dark Pacific water where bull sharks circle — their territory, your privilege.
Aliwal Shoal
South Africa
Ragged-tooth sharks hover above a fossil dune reef washed by warm current.
Witch's Rock (Playa Naranjo)
Costa Rica
A volcanic rock rising from Pacific surf at a break so remote you arrive by boat.
Chuuk Lagoon
Micronesia
A warm lagoon where coral grows over the deck guns of a sunken Japanese fleet.
An Teallach
Scotland
Pinnacled ridges and plunging corries form a mountain so fierce it tests the bravest scramblers.
Rum
Scotland
A volcanic island where a shuttered Edwardian castle guards its orchestrion and faded excess.
Assynt
Scotland
Solitary mountains erupt from a moonscape of lochs and bog like cathedrals without congregations.