Scapa Flow Dive Guide by Lawson Wood – ISBN 978-1-905492-04-9 (£15.99)
There are many European divers who consider Scapa Flow to have unquestionably the best wreck diving in Europe and for many it is very high on their ‘best wreck diving in the world’ list. Therefore it is not surprising that a lot of books have been written about it. However, wrecks of the age of most at Scapa Flow are deteriorating so it is always worth having access to the latest information before diving.

Before he moved to the Cayman Islands, Lawson Wood lived in Eyemouth in Scotland and was a regular visitor to Scapa Flow so he knows it well. Hot on the heels of his earlier book (The Bull & The Barriers -The Wrecks of Scapa Flow - Tempus, Stroud, 2000), Lawson has now written an up-to-date Scapa Flow Dive Guide, which is published by AquaPress.

From the divers’ point of view the book has everything that they are likely to need: a brief history, how to get there, descriptions of the wrecks before sinking and as they are now for a diver, the block ships, selected dives that are not on wrecks, operators, including live-aboards, useful, clear charts, history of relevant salvage work, some detail on marine life and the latest information on a recompression chamber available to sports divers.

From the purists’ point of view the book looks to have been pieced together in a hurry and not checked by an editor or proof reader. The conversion between sq. miles and sq. kilometres is wrong. There is often a double space after a full stop as was common in the days of typewriters. There is a lack of consistency between xx,xxxtons and xx,xxx tons. And there are several references to vessels that either weighed xx,xxx tons or weighing xx.xxx tons or even worse weighed 202 gross tons, that shows a lack of knowledge of how a ships tonnage is calculated .

This is the sort of book that a diver will want to pack for a trip to Scapa Flow, full of hard facts, and, at the time of writing, the most comprehensive and up-to-date.