It's my fault really!! The contract with my publishers Whittles provided for a 220 page book. By the time I'd finished it and done justice to Scapa Flow it has come in at 360 pages! This has in turn meant a longer editing and design process - before the files get sent for printing an dsubsequen tdsitribution of th ebound volumes. We have simply run out of time to meet the provisionally intended publication date of 28 May so to take the heat off we are letting publication slip by about 1 month. No point rushing it.

Just back from presenting about HMS Hampshire at OZTek in Sydney and a week's diving directly after with Tulagi Dive up in Guadalcanal in the Solomon Islands. Interesting WWII wreck diving with some incredibly well preserved aircraft - particularly a Catalina PBY flying boat and a Japanese Kawanishi fluying boat - Allied reporting name MAVIS

Its been a lot of work but the manuscript for the Centenary edition has now completed its edit process. Huge thanks to my brilliant editor Caroline Petherick for spotting my howlers (hopefully all of them!!) and tidying everything up.The book is now looking great - its been fully expanded to about 150,000 words and will be a big book - packed full of information that just wasn't around when I wrote it the first time round. The only thing that remains the same is the title!

The launch has now been set for Thursday 18 May at the Royal Hotel in Stromness - looking forward to it already!

2016 was quite a year.

An early Wreck X expedition to Scapa Flow in February was followed by a Wreck X expedition to Palau where we launched my latest book DIve Palau - the Shipwrecks at Sams Tours on the island of Koror.

After leading an Explorers Club expedition under MOD Licence to survey HMS Hampshire off Orkney in June, the same survey team reformed at the beginning of December to begin the survey of the British battleship HMS Vanguard, which blew up at anchor in Scapa Flow in 1917. The wreck is a war grave on which no diving is permitted but our team was again granted a MOD Licence to visit her remains. We carried out preliminary work with a side scan sonar survey of the site before we began to dive the wreck and piece together her story. A further 2 week expedition to complete the survey work takes place at end of January/beginning of February. 

Its done! The manuscript is done and dusted and going off to my publishers with all the photos, charts, new illsutrations all neatly captioned and ready for the editing and layout process to start. A quiet celebratory beer seems in order tonight!

It is with great sadness that I learned of the passing of Noel Blacklock last week. Noel had contacted me out of the blue in 2011 when he spotted a few lines I'd posted in my Blog about having located and dived the WWII convoy loss SS Creemuir.  He was 89 then and had been the RN Radio Officer on Creemuir - and he was now the last living survivor of the crew of 42 - only 12 of whom survived the actual sinking. I subsequently met Noel and we got on like a house on fire as he recounted the whole story to me. Creemuir had been leading the port column of a convoy bound from Methil for Nova Scotia in 1941 when the convoy was attacked off Stonehaven by German torpedo bombers. She went down in 3 minutes, Noel was knocked unconcious as she went under but came to in the water and after about 40 minutes in the North Sea he was pulled into a raft. I devoted a whole chapter to Creemuir and Noel's story inThe Darkness Below and this triggered relatives of other crew to get in touch - I passed them on to Noel who was delighted to fill in the gaps for them. Noel was 95 and was one of the last of the Atlantic convoy veterans - he had a great sense of fun and vivacity about him. I will miss him and our shared interest in the sea.