Inverewe & Calanish
As the National Geographic Endeavor cruised through the Western Isles of Scotland today, from the quiet bay of Inverewe to the glacially scoured hills of Lewis, highlights dropped from the air above and rose from the depths below.
Following our morning visit to Inverewe Gardens, we were making our way out to the Outer Hebrides when the local unit of the Royal Coast Guard contacted us and asked permission to conduct a helicopter rescue drill using the National Geographic Endeavour as the target vessel. Of course we happily assented and soon a large helo was hovering over our stern, slowly working it’s way closer in the stiff breeze. As we all crowded the decks to watch, one of the coastguardsmen carefully prepared the winch and harness, then stepped out the door, hung suspended on the cable for a few moments of final maneuvering and then deftly stepped onto one of the Zodiacs perched on our stern rack.
Less than an hour later our attention turned to the depths below in a presentation on the historic shipwrecks of the Northern Isles. We gathered in the lounge for a comfortable, dry look into the chilly depths around Shetland and Orkney, HD video on the big flat screens carrying us right into scenes which lay close at hand but just out of reach during our visit there. Below one of the remote headlands on the southeast corner of Fair Isle, deep in a narrow rocky gully lie an eroded canon and an anchor, the only remnants of the Gran Grifon, one of the once-proud ships of the great Spanish Armada of 1588. 430 years beneath the waves, these lonely artifacts turn our minds to the vagaries of fate and the twists and turns of the long chain of history linking their time and ours.
Not far away, beneath the dark waters of Scapa Flow in Orkney, the great battleships and cruisers of the German High Seas Fleet of WWI are as famous among divers as they are to historians. These immense vessels were scuttled while interned here and though many have been salvaged over the ensuing years, several remain remarkably intact, huge and enticing objectives for underwater exploration. In the video images shot just the previous day we swam over lifeboat davots and great rudders decorated with beautiful anemones, worked our way into a collapsed boiler-room and entered the dark cavern beneath a battleship’s hull to find the enormous 12-inch guns, guns which took part in the Battle of Jutland, one of the greatest naval engagements in history.
Exploring our world is inherently a three dimensional affair; today land, sea and sky gave us a rich picture of Scotland’s wild islands.
As the National Geographic Endeavor cruised through the Western Isles of Scotland today, from the quiet bay of Inverewe to the glacially scoured hills of Lewis, highlights dropped from the air above and rose from the depths below.
Following our morning visit to Inverewe Gardens, we were making our way out to the Outer Hebrides when the local unit of the Royal Coast Guard contacted us and asked permission to conduct a helicopter rescue drill using the National Geographic Endeavour as the target vessel. Of course we happily assented and soon a large helo was hovering over our stern, slowly working it’s way closer in the stiff breeze. As we all crowded the decks to watch, one of the coastguardsmen carefully prepared the winch and harness, then stepped out the door, hung suspended on the cable for a few moments of final maneuvering and then deftly stepped onto one of the Zodiacs perched on our stern rack.
Less than an hour later our attention turned to the depths below in a presentation on the historic shipwrecks of the Northern Isles. We gathered in the lounge for a comfortable, dry look into the chilly depths around Shetland and Orkney, HD video on the big flat screens carrying us right into scenes which lay close at hand but just out of reach during our visit there. Below one of the remote headlands on the southeast corner of Fair Isle, deep in a narrow rocky gully lie an eroded canon and an anchor, the only remnants of the Gran Grifon, one of the once-proud ships of the great Spanish Armada of 1588. 430 years beneath the waves, these lonely artifacts turn our minds to the vagaries of fate and the twists and turns of the long chain of history linking their time and ours.
Not far away, beneath the dark waters of Scapa Flow in Orkney, the great battleships and cruisers of the German High Seas Fleet of WWI are as famous among divers as they are to historians. These immense vessels were scuttled while interned here and though many have been salvaged over the ensuing years, several remain remarkably intact, huge and enticing objectives for underwater exploration. In the video images shot just the previous day we swam over lifeboat davots and great rudders decorated with beautiful anemones, worked our way into a collapsed boiler-room and entered the dark cavern beneath a battleship’s hull to find the enormous 12-inch guns, guns which took part in the Battle of Jutland, one of the greatest naval engagements in history.
Exploring our world is inherently a three dimensional affair; today land, sea and sky gave us a rich picture of Scotland’s wild islands.
