Simon Campbell

St Kilda Guide: The essential guide

In April 2009, the Triton Oceanic team revisited the amazing St Kilda archipelago to research material for an ‘Essential Dive Guide’ to the Islands, the first major work for 20 years.

Abstract

The volcanic archipelago of St Kilda is an amazing place. Plunging cliffs, towering sea stacs and rocky shores have been battered by centuries of wind and sea’s to form some of the UK’s most stunning underwater landscapes of caves, arches and passageways. The clear, oceanic water supports a spectacularly diverse and stunning range of animals and plants.

Objective

Triton Oceanic Sub Aqua Club undertook their second expedition to the Scottish islands to explore the remote beauty of the islands underwater world to the full, pioneering previously identified virgin dive sites and visiting some of the old favourites. This expedition will form the basis of the ‘Essential Guide to St Kilda’, a brand new publication featuring the ‘top 20’ sites across the islands.

Travel

The expedition diving platform was the MV Elizabeth G, a 22.85m ice-class Norwegian rescue ship, and one of the best live-aboard expedition ships in the UK. All our possible needs were catered for: good food, good humour, oxygen, comfortable bunks and more food.

Having been to Kilda over 120 times over the last few years, Skipper Rob Barlow is very experienced. This depth of knowledge dictated the time of the year to conduct the expedition. We left from Malaig on the evening of Friday April 10th (Good Friday) and returned two weeks later on Saturday April 25. People thought we were mad it being too early!

The trip up to St Kilda is dreaded by some and feared by most, but the ship can take almost anything that can be thrown at it providing the team can… Fortunately the weather was amazing, managing to dive seven days in near perfect conditions. As we returned however, we ended up punching through head seas around the East of Skye in a SouthEasterly force nine!

The water temperature was between 9/11C off the archipelago but a slightly chilly 7/8C around Skye. Horizontal visibility around St Kilda varied between 15/35m.

The team

The team consisted of: Rob Barlow (Skipper), Simon Campbell (Expedition leader and #2 Skipper), Jackie Dixon (Dive/Project Manager), Helen Rickets (Crew), Angela Campbell (Cook), O-Ring King (aka Brian Cooper, technician), Justin Owen, Teresa Darbyshire and Jim Donbavand.

The guide

We now have a raft of information from the three expeditions that will take a few months to collate. The guide will feature a fully rounded and documented understanding of the sites; their beauty, dangers, must do’s and don’t do’s from the prospective of the diver and skipper.

I won’t be blogging about the trip as you will have to wait for the publication :-) but some of the team members will be publishing their stories on this site: there were some very hairy moments!

What next?

I plan to go out again in August to tie up some loose ends. I also need a buddy, so you fancy yourself as an ‘explorer’ :-) please contact me for a chat… I really would like another rebreather diver if possible and someone who is experienced; some of the dives are pretty challenging!

For further background, read about our first St Kilda expedition. and click on the top right to see some of the photographs on my Flickr stream.

5 comments

1. Stephen Hodgkins on 17/01/09 at 1710 hours

   Sounds like an interesting project. I may be interested if you have space but need to confirm dates as I am off to the Bahamas on 4th April. I will be in St. Kilda in July if I can help on that trip in any way.

   Steve

2. Simon Campbell on 18/01/09 at 1221 hours

   Good work. We may need some follow up stuff doing. Thanks in advance!!!

3. Andy Dowsland on 18/03/09 at 1924 hours

   Hi, I’m booked on a trip to St Kilda 18th to 24th July on Elizabeth G.  I’m an Advanced Diver with 16 years experience.  Dive CCR Trimix, have been dabbling in UW photography for a few years, nothing too technical.  Am about to launch into UW video.  Have been wanting to visit St Kilda for years, keen on wrecks too, though there’s not many on St Kilda.  I think there are spaces on the trip available still, though I’m not organising it.  Anyway if you need any further material following your trip let me know.
   Cheers, Andy D.

4. Simonski on 23/03/09 at 0951 hours

   Thanks Andy, we will give you a shout if we need anything!

5. Brian O-Ring King on 08/05/09 at 1330 hours

   Simon,
   In a previous life I was the Chairperson of the AAAA (to you that is the Association for the Abolition of the Aberant Apostrophy)
   I cannot help but notice that you have erred and placed an apostrophy where it should NOT have been,
   to wit:-
   Sea ...noun singular salty water.
   Seas..noun plural ie more than one of them.ie the Seven Seas
   Sea’s..belonging to or possessed by the sea. ie the sea’s waves thrashed against the hull
   it gets a bit more complicated if you have something beloging to more than one sea
   Seas’ or possibly seas’s but this may be too complex or esoteric for you to consider.

   Could you also try to avoid Grocers’ plurals as in Potato’s 40p per kilo ( the plurals belong to the grocers but the potatoes are mearly plural ie more than one potato.If it was one grocer with his (or her) plural it would indeed be grocer’s plural…if you get my drift.

   If you think that I warrent calling by one of your favorite names please ensure that the hyphen is correctly positioned between the two parts of the insult (see wikipedia reference knob-sh#te)

   Your’s sincerely
   O-Ring King
   Ps where are my overall’s?
   Could you plea’se forward thi’s to Jackie a’s s’he didn’t want to be left out…?

You are currently reading:

“St Kilda Guide”

Chapters

• Chapter one
• The essential guide
• Overview
• Introduction
• Introduction
• Chapter two
• Chapter three
• Chapter four
• Chapter five
• Chapter six

Triton Oceanic Sub Aqua Club undertook their second expedition to the Scottish islands to explore the remote beauty of the islands underwater world to the full, pioneering previously identified virgin dive sites and visiting some of the old favourites.

This expedition will form the basis of the ‘Essential Guide to St Kilda’, a brand new publication featuring the ‘top 20’ sites across the islands.