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JOHANNA THORDEN

The Johanna Thorden, for us, is a Scapa Flow sleeper. Everyone talks about the German High Seas Fleet, and rightly so, but this 1936 motor vessel, sunk in a storm just a year after launch, has a quiet charm all its own. At a shallow 15 metres, it's a perfect dive to get your eye in, or for a longer bottom time without racking up deco. We love nosing around the engine room, which is still impressively intact, and the bow section has a real sense of scale as you glide over it. The real draw here, though, is the light. On a sunny day, with the sun filtering through the shallower parts of the superstructure, it's almost ethereal. Schools of saithe drift past, and we’ve seen some hefty conger eels tucked into crevices. The wreck is well broken, but enough remains to give you a true sense of its original form, and the marine growth, particularly the anemones, has really taken hold. It’s not the imposing steel mountain of some of the bigger wrecks, but it offers a genuinely peaceful and absorbing exploration.