Hispania by Gord McKeown
The other divers arrived and George cast off and we set sail out through the mouth of little Lochaline and into the open Sound. The scenery became increasingly dramatic but I wasn’t seeing it anymore. My raw inexperience was morphing into dread.
We were soon alongside the small orange buoy that marks the spot, bang in the centre of the waterway, where the Hispania lies. I felt awkward and clumsy in my kit - it felt so heavy, and the trilaminate dry suit seemed about three sizes too large. There was a slight breeze and the surface of the sea was chopped up in little white horses.
‘Your suit looks too big,’ said Andrew.
We were buddy checking as the first buddy pair from Cambridge hit the water with two almighty splashes. The English group, which seemed to consist of four couples, was very upbeat. They entered the water in quick succession and suddenly just Andrew and I were left. George was standing by the side of the boat, holding onto the dive ladder which was still stowed in an upright position just behind the wheelhouse. He turned to us and surveyed my kit and general demeanour. The boat felt oh so empty. The world fell silent.
‘Your suit looks too big,’ he said with a wry laugh.
‘Do you think so?’ I replied.
‘You’ll be ok so long as you have enough weight,’ he said. ‘Do you have enough weight?’
‘I think so,’ I replied.
George paused and gave Andrew a look which said, ‘I hope you know what you’re doing,’ and then walked back to his cabin to manoeuvre the little boat into position for us.
Buddy-checked and ready, we stood at the open side of the deck and waited.
‘Ready!’ called George in his Highland accent.
‘Ready!’ responded Andrew behind me.
I could see the buoy now, hovering into view at the starboard bow. Slowly, as Gemini Breeze moved alongside, it drifted round in front of me.
‘OK’ shouted George.
I took my giant stride and landed in the foam, disoriented and breathing rapidly. There was a slight current and I was moving away from the shot.
‘Swim!’ called Andrew, who had entered the water directly behind me.
I swam and made it to the buoy. I grabbed it and waited to catch my breath. Andrew pulled on his shoulder dump and disappeared beneath the surface. I lifted the direct feed for my BC above my left shoulder and pushed the dump button. I squeezed my suit and pulled my knees up to my chest in an effort to dump air.
Andrew turned around and worked himself deeper down the line, head slightly down, his fins flicking out behind him. Now that we were beneath the waves, everything was a little bit calmer. Andrew had switched his torch on and was now around ten metres beneath me. I had neither torch nor computer, and was using my analogue depth gauge to orient myself in the water column. I pulled myself down the rope behind my buddy. And then I stopped dead: what the hell was that!
In the midst of all the pre-dive procedure and busyness, I had almost forgotten what this dive was about. I had been thinking about my skills, my buoyancy, getting my checks right, my gauges, my nerves, everything except the objective - the reason we were out there in the first place. It was the middle of a summer day and the sun was directly overhead, streaming down through the water on every side and illuminating what lay beyond, below, beneath me. I had been looking at my buddy’s fins, concentrating on my progress by keeping up with the yellow labels pasted to the back of the white cylinders of his twin-set. But then, slowly my eyes were distracted by a looming swatch of orange and pink below him which stretched out in both directions and suddenly I knew I was looking at my first ever shipwreck.
It was not what I had expected at all.
What I had expected was a grey metal ship, or something along those lines, but this looked like nothing other than a garden - some sort of colourful rose garden blooming there in bright, clear, green water. It was vivid and it was absolutely beautiful. I hung there from the shot and simply stared. I could see the whole ship, from end to end, sitting there on a light sandy bottom, tilted slightly to its port side at an angle of maybe seventy-five degrees. I could see the other divers exploring the decks and gangways, and there were bubbles, silver escaping mercury, rushing up from cracks and breaks in the structure where divers had entered and were swimming inside.
I realised that Andrew was waiting for me at the base of the shot line. I worked my way down and put some air in my suit to equalise the pressure which was shrink-wrapping my body like a pack of bacon. I left the shot and followed him along the deck in the direction of the stern. I could see that there were divers inside the ship; I caught sight of them from time to time below me through openings in the deck and inside big square holds. I was amazed by how bright it was! I was still a little too buoyant, and as I consumed my air the situation worsened. We were at a depth of 19m on the deck and I had around 120bar of air left in my single 12 litre cylinder. I held onto the railing at the side of the deck, knowing that if I let go I would start to float up towards the surface, and that if that happened then I might accelerate up the line with bubbles growing in my blood like champagne.
That day I survived in the Sound of Mull was a special day. Long ago, greenish blue, chiaroscuro, sun-drenched, my passion and my fate were sealed.
