Leviathans Below



There are many large ship wrecks, lying on the bottom of Scapa Flow, some quite close to the surface.  These are mostly naval ships and it is a little bit eerie, sailing quietly over them.  Some are the last of the German High Seas fleet, scuttled in 1919.  Others, such as Royal Oak were lost in action and contain the remains of hundreds of sailors.  Parliament has now designated the latter as war graves and this has stopped the Admiralty from their previous practice of cutting them up for scrap.  Personally, I’d be happy for my bones to be scattered about a bit, in the interests of recycling, but others seem to feel differently.

Continuing the World War II theme, we sailed from St Marys Holm, west across Scapa Flow, to moor at Lyness.  We had the huge dock mostly to ourselves, save for the occasional fish farm workboat, who were happy to share their extensive dock with us.

Rapport Alongside - Lyness Harbour
Lyness used to be a huge royal naval base, supporting the fleet.  It is now very run down, with the museum closed until next year, but fascinating to walk around.  The site was brought to life by our guide, Jude, who turned lumps of old concrete and rusting steel into such things as barrage balloon factories, cinemas, decontamination first-aid posts, narrow gauge railways and oil storage tanks.

Doug With Anti-Torpedo Net, Steam Crane Behind

Firefighting Coordination and Lookout Post - Typical of Local Aesthetics

Rosie with Remains of a Very Large A-Bracket

Lyness Cemetry - Lest We Forget
After the quiet of Lyness, we felt like a night out, so we nipped around the corner to Longhope to pick up a mooring and rowed ashore for supper.

Longness Mooring - Rosie Inflates The Dinghy, After The Shower.

The fish and chips, cooked by Sabine in the Royal Hotel, were quite delicious.  A fire burned in the grate (it is August, after all) and Beefy the pub dog (a fearsome looking cross between Labrador and Mastiff) welcomed us gently.


Longness - Royal Hotel To Far Left

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