Surface Photos, Bodø to Narvik, Norway, July 2009

These are some photos from a liveaboard trip in northern Norway with the Bath Sub-Aqua Club (BSAC 33). We flew from Gatwick to Oslo and then Bodø. In the pouring rain we piled our mountain of luggage on to the bus for the trip to the quayside, where we manhandled it over the intervening boat. Our boat was the Jane R, a converted scottish herring drifter skippered by Gordon Wadsworth. Over the course of a week and a journey of over 200 nautical miles, we made our way north to Narvik, the Jane R's home port, diving on mostly wartime wrecks.

At depth, the water was 6 celcius, which was fine for about half an hour, and then the cold became really noticeable. Rising up through the thermocline made 10-12 degree water feel positively balmy! I wore a new O'Three Ri 2/100 dry suit, 5mm hood and gloves, Northern Diver flectalon 200 inner suit plus a thermal skin. The photos shown here were taken with an old Canon EOS 20D with the 18-55mm kit lens. My underwater shots are all in black and white due to low light levels and an insensitive old compact camera.

The boat was fairly basic, but the gang were great company, I learned how to fill cylinders (it became my main duty), and how to catch and gut fish. The weather started out bad, e.g. raining on our outing to the aviation museum in Bodø but improved later in the week. This was my first experience of the Artic Circle in Summer! It never got truly dark and in combination with the slow cruising speed (5 knots) meal times slipped accordingly, sometimes we had dinner at midnight, and lunch was often at teatime. Gordon didn't have any crew so we had to help with washing up and cooking, as well as air fills!

Our diving itinerary:

Saturday 25 July: The Rabat near Bodø harbour: WWII wreck in superb condition, deck around 30-35m. My first sighting of a wolf fish.
Sunday 26 July: kelp dive on route: A so-so dive next to a rocky island with a light house. which several of us later snorkeled to and explored. I had already de-kitted and missed the shore party.
Monday, 27 July: Røst: On Sunday night, after a tricky approach in fog through narrow channels, we moored overnight and dived on a rocky reef. Lots of sea life to look at, and I especially enjoyed the squat lobsters. Monday evening we dived in a narrow fjord near Reine looking for scallops. Lots of pink encrusting coraline algae that built up into what at first sight looked like coral outcrops. We kept to 15m as below that the temperature got very cold, brrrr! On deck a good collection. Pete Plume surprised us with an angel fish.
Tuesday 28 July: Hadsel, Lofoten islands: The Hadsel sunk in the fifties. This was a deeper dive and we clocked up 13 minutes of deco after pottering around at 38m, and similarly on the second dive to 40m.
Wednesday 29 July: Gudrun, near Ballstad: This is an icelandic trawler that sunk after hitting shallow rocks and refusing a tow. There was a mysterious milky cloud hanging above the deck which I caught in a photo. We later dived on the SS Hamburg, a freezer ship that sank in the harbour of Svolvaer after being blown up by Norwegian resistance fighters. The viz on the outside of the hull was poor but improved dramatically as we made our way into the hull, the decking of which having collapsed long time ago. We later ascended though sunny water filled with drifting moon jellies!
Thursday 30 July: Kamoy: A cargo ship with lots of netting draped over the wreckage. Gordon told us to look out for the "gold dust" (fools gold), but I never saw any. We later visited the site where the German ammunition ship Rauenfels blew up, which flung wreckage high into the sky, falling on the shore and surrounding hillside. Following a shore party to a disused former German and later Nato base, we dived on the Eric Koellner which sank in the 1st battle of Narvik. It is now in pretty poor shape. Our 3rd dive (the only 3rd dive of the week) was on an iron ore freighter across the fjord from Narvik harbour. Its sheer size was impressive, especially when ascending from within one of the holds, having found a way in from a hole in the hull at sea bottom level.
Friday 31 July: Anton Schmidt and Herman Kunne: The Anton Schmidt is one of 3 german Z22 class destroyers sunk by the british in Narvik harbour. They were later re-located in the sixties to clear the harbour approaches. For our last dive we moved to the Herman Kunne which was run aground by the german crew after running out of fuel and ammunition. We started the dive at the stern which sits at 39m and made our towards the bow, which is pretty mangled to end our dive in the shallows looking at the sea life on the bottom at 4m. Someone has recently had a shooting party as the shallows were littered with beer bottles and clay pidgeons.

Overall, a very enjoyable trip! We had two evenings in Narvik and managed to see the war museum and a couple of pubs (beer at 6 GBP per pint!) The next day we got a minibus to the Harstad/Narvik airport and flew south to Oslo, staying overnight before flying back to the UK.