The invitation came at short notice, the way it always does. A midsummer window of fair weather had opened up, the forecast holding just long enough, and word went round: the Lings, Tuesday evening, on the slack. By the time we slipped our lines at Oysterhaven, there was a boatload of us, most at instructor level, all with enough seasons behind us to know what was being offered. You don’t turn down the Lings.

Chances come rarely because so much has to fall into place at once. Like most Irish diving clubs, our season is between the turning of the clocks in spring and their turning back in October; inside that half of the year you wait for a settled day — and not too early in the season, once you’ve dived up enough to be sharp again after the winter; and inside that day there is the slack itself, the twenty-odd minutes when the tide pauses before it turns. Even then, the coxswain has to read the plotter and the sounder and put the shot down on the peaks at the right moment. The place is not hidden. It lies a few miles off the harbour mouth, out beyond the Old Head, and the Admiralty chart names it plainly enough — Ling Rock, in the singular, a word and a sounding and nothing more. But the men who fished it long before us called it the Ling Peaks.

I had dived it a handful of times over the years, but only once in its full greatness. Years ago, on one of those rare bright days when the water is clear, and the sun reaches all the way down into it, I filmed the Peaks on an earlier camera, and the footage still holds up — it gives a far better account of the place than any words of mine can. A conger came out of its crevice that day, far enough that I found myself easing backwards, before it thought better of the encounter and slid slowly home. I have wondered since whether it was curious about me, or only meeting its own reflection in the curve of my dome port — I never knew, and I have come to prefer not knowing. What I do know is that a day like that, once the sea gives it to you, never quite leaves you.

This evening offered none of that. A bank of cloud sat almost on the water, the rain had come in, and the light was already going as the boat worked in the swell. It was diveable, and that was enough; we went.

We were the first pair in. The buoy marking the shot line fell from view and rose again on the passing swells as we ran through our checks and rolled backwards into the grey bosom of the Celtic Sea. We finned across to it, exchanged OK and Descend, then turned face down and began to drop, the angled line held loosely in one hand to guide us down. A few metres down I paused to clear my ears, took stock of the moment, and looked back for my buddy — and it was then that the open water made itself felt. This was not the coast. Inshore, around Kinsale and Oysterhaven, our home patch, the sea has one character; out here it had another, colder and more oceanic, and it closed over us as we sank beneath the grey roof of cloud and rain.

Light levels were already low, and lower still as I powered up the camera, the rain front pulling the dusk forward out of a midsummer evening that should have stayed bright for hours yet. The current had not let go. Being first in, we were a little ahead of the slack — that brief pause when the ocean calms its canter before it changes direction, ebb to flood and back again, as it has done since the dawn of time on this ocean world of ours, in answer to its gravitational cousin and nearest cosmic neighbour, the Moon. As we came up on the twenty-five-metre mark a pale shape resolved out of the gloom below us, the first sign of the reef: a white outline, ahead and beneath.

I settled my buoyancy and got comfortable. We had twenty minutes on the bottom before we would need to start back up the line, and we set off into the current by design, so the drift would carry us home when we were ready to turn the dive.

My buddy’s light found the white wall I had glimpsed on the way down. Plumose anemones covered every inch of it, dense and soft and pale, giving way only in patches to darker greens and oranges. In the clefts between the angled rock the shadows held — a pollack, perhaps, hanging back out of the light.

Ten minutes in, we were working entirely by the beams of our dive and focus lights, swimming in among the pinnacles, rising and dropping along faces cut at oblique angles. This is what makes the Lings the most memorable dive on our south coast: not the depth, nor the distance offshore, but the sheer kaleidoscope of colour that opens once you are down among the peaks.

And here is the thing about that colour: it reached us only by the light we carried. By the time we were among the peaks, the water had gone properly dark, the surface a rumour somewhere above, and beyond the reach of our beams there was no colour at all — the deep had taken it. Where a dive light fell, the reef bloomed, a pool of it at a time, shifting as the beam shifted, and the eye gathered it piecemeal, never the whole. The camera gathered more. I had wound the camera’s sensitivity up to a height that would have been unthinkable a few years ago — ISO 3200 — so that with a little light it caught far more than the eye could hold, and handed the scene back to me afterwards on the screen, lit and entire.

The Peaks have been giving things up to people for a long time. To the men who fished them, they gave ling and pollack and conger, and the charter boats out of Kinsale built a reputation on that ground — superb mixed fishing, written up by visiting journalists to draw rods from England and Holland. The records that survive from those years are records of catches: a specimen pollack one season, twelve and a half pounds, named and weighed. The sea gave, and what came up could be put on a scale. We come for the part the scales never measured — the shadow I took for a pollack, the anemones standing open in the current, the colour the camera kept for me. Same rocks; a different harvest.

It was not the day I will remember the Lings by — that day was filmed more than a decade ago and lives now on a screen. But it was a day the Peaks let us come.

When the invitation came again, before the summer had properly settled in, it came in a different key. The forecast promised the opposite of that June evening: bright, calm on paper, force two to three out of the west, the kind of morning that should deliver the Lings at their best. We put out from Oysterhaven expecting a clear day and found fog holding stubbornly along the shore behind us instead — thinning offshore to something like a mile of visibility, enough that boat traffic was no concern, though there is rarely much of that so far out regardless. Normally, at this distance, land drops away almost entirely, or you’re left with a thin grey line of the Old Head on a clear day. That morning it simply wasn’t there.

Going down the line, I found myself reading the water the way the last dive had taught me to, waiting for the blue tinge that means the coast has let go of you. It never came. The green held at ten metres and thickened with depth, gloomier the further down we went — exactly the opposite of what the evening dive had shown me. The one lesson I thought I’d learned from the Lings, they were already taking back.

The first minute or two at twenty-five metres always goes on housekeeping — clearing ears, settling the suit, finding neutral buoyancy — and only then does the diver in me hand over to the photographer: reading what light there is, working the strobes, checking exposure, before switching back again to the discipline of depth, time and gas that never really goes away. There is no free ascent out here; whatever happens on the bottom, you find your way back to the line, because a lone diver’s marker is a hard thing for a boat to spot this far from shore. Two advanced nitrox divers ahead of us had fixed bright strobe lights to the line, five or six metres off the seabed, and it was a comfort to glimpse them even after drifting a little way off.

Back on the boat, we heard the bull seal before we saw him. A laboured breath through flared nostrils carried in the still air, and we turned to see his large head and dark eyes fixed on us. On his last breath, the nostrils shut, the head turned, and the whole bulk of him rolled past, two or three seconds of him, then only the tail, and then nothing. He has shown up on each day out there this season. Whether he had come to check on the two divers already down on the line, neither of them saw him, so there’s no knowing what he saw or sensed from the bubble-blowing visitors to his patch.

I called into the lab, which had a long corridor that opened into a reception area. Behind the reception desk stood a tall glass-fronted fridge where the film stock was displayed. I had just enquired about getting two rolls of 1600 ISO slide film, and Bill, the veteran lab owner, placed them gently on the counter.

“Grain like golf balls, but it will do the job,” he said, and continued, “It’s really a 400 ISO film designed for push processing two stops. Just make sure you nail the exposure because it’s very unforgiving at this extreme.”

Slide film was unforgiving at the best of times, but this Fujichrome 1600D was going to press that even further.

I took the two rolls of film in my hand and looked at them, then looked back up at Bill and said, “These, Bill, are going to document a relic of Hitler’s submarine navy. We’ve found a U-boat down in West Cork, but it’s deep and it’s dark.”

The following Saturday, we’d be heading to Union Hall, weather permitting.

Conditions were good on the day, and after striding into the water from Sundancer II, we drifted over towards the shot line buoy, my dive buddy and I exchanged nods, released the air from our buoyancy jackets and slipped beneath the surface. We oriented ourselves and began the descent—bottom time begins from the moment you leave the surface.

We had twelve minutes. The single 12-litre tank dictated everything—not enough gas to get into trouble, not enough time to overstay. The physics demanded discipline.

I carried a Nikon F90 in its Subal housing, a 16mm fisheye lens behind an 8-inch dome, and a single Nikon SB-104 underwater flash on a long arm. I was confident in both my diving and photography abilities, and optimistic about the Fujichrome 1600, though I’d never used it before.

The rope disappeared into green darkness. At twenty metres the water turned murky, then cleared. At thirty metres I could feel the nitrogen beginning its work. The wreck emerged at thirty-five metres—the long cigar-shaped hull looming from the darkness. The shot line was positioned near the conning tower. Marine life had colonised every surface—anemones like ostrich plumes, dead man’s fingers swaying orange in the current.

My buddy stayed near the conning tower while I descended to the seabed, looking for an angle. The wreck lies notably over to one side, so I had to shimmy into the dark shadow beneath the tower to get the shot I wanted—looking up, dramatic, showing the open hatch with my buddy visible above.

I worked the single flash to light the scene of the tilted hull. Metridia, sponges, jewel anemones—all the small colourful life that encrusts metal. A large ling emerged briefly before retreating into shadow. The wreck wasn’t pretty—it was dark, commanding, a little spooky in its silence.

The open hatch stood there. I shone my dive light into the dark interior but could make little out. There was no going in—the thought terrified me. We’d never considered penetration. This was recreational diving at its limit, and we were careful.

Time to ascend. The long, slow climb to safety stop depth, where we’d breathe down the remaining gas conservatively.

When 35mm slide film was processed in those days, it was develop-only, cut into strips of six and placed in sleeves. At Colorfoto, there was a narrow light table opposite the reception desk where you could examine your transparencies with a loupe.

I tipped out the sleeved film and spread it out. Right away I could see we had an iconic shot of the conning tower.

“You better come see this, Bill.”

He came over, took the loupe, examined the image closely.

“That pushed film worked,” he said quietly. “You’ve got your shot.”

March 12th, 1945—Galley Head

The historical narrative that follows draws from Paddy O’Sullivan’s research. His 1999 article for the Ardfield/Rathbarry Journal was substantially cut in publication. What follows uses his published account.

The twelfth day of March 1945 was just another routine day for the lighthouse keepers and their families at Galley Head. The storm of previous days had calmed, and the howling wind had dropped to a south-westerly whisper—only the wailing of the gulls interrupted the stillness. That evening saw a scarlet sun set amid fiery clouds. The moonless night that followed brought total darkness to the landscape.

The remote quietness of this rocky headland contrasted sharply with the inferno of war raging in Europe. Germany’s armies were retreating on all fronts and Hitler’s dream of a Third Reich was collapsing in the blood-drenched rubble of the Second World War. Ten weeks later the Führer’s Berlin would be crushed in a storm of blood and fire as Russian T-52 tanks rumbled into the heart of the Reich capital. Towards the end, Hitler would brood for days in his bunker before ending Germany’s war and his own life by his suicide on 30th April 1945.

Meanwhile at Galley Head, lighthouse keepers Sam Glanville and his assistant keeper, Joe O’Byrne, tended to their daily duties. Joe’s one-month-old infant, Teresa, was restless in her cot and would not settle for sleep. Joe’s wife, Peggy, fussed about the kitchen tidying up some odds and ends to the accompaniment of a confused moth flopping clumsily around the paraffin lamp.

Soon most would be in bed, barring the watchkeeper, who would tend to the lighthouse lamp into the early hours of the 13th.

Suddenly a sound like popping champagne corks disturbed the night as two dazzling flares fizzed skywards—moments later their spent cartridges landed in the lighthouse yard.

Within minutes both households were awake with keepers and nearby coast-watchers picking their way down the treacherous slopes to investigate the source of the flares. To their astonishment they discovered that sailors from Hitler’s navy had been shipwrecked on the high seas and had somehow drifted ashore, having floated for hours in rubber dinghies.

In total, forty-eight sailors were swept eastwards on the flood tide—eleven managed to clamber onto the rocks at Galley Head. The rest were swept further east to be picked up later by the Courtmacsherry lifeboat.

The Kitchen at Galley Head

The Galley Head contingent of sailors were led up the cliff and soon found themselves in the warmth of Joe O’Byrne’s kitchen—most crowded around the turf-fuelled stove to warm their chilled hands. Some handed over gifts of tinned cigarettes and dried beef to their hosts—one gave a Dutch silver coin to Peggy O’Byrne as a memento of his visit. Meanwhile the captain, Klaus Becker, busied himself burning his ship’s papers in the stove.

Soon the kettle was boiling and welcome cups of scalding tea were served to the bone-chilled mariners—cigarettes were lit up as the Germans relaxed to tell their tale.

Their lost vessel was none other than the submarine U-260, a Type VIIC class. Oberleutnant Klaus Becker had departed from Kristiansand in Norway in February of 1945, pointing the iron snout of his submarine westward for operations in the English Channel—he had received specific orders to maraud off Southampton.

Within weeks he found himself patrolling in bad weather about twenty miles south of the Fastnet—visibility was poor and rain was relentless. Suddenly a deafening explosion rocked his submarine and plunged the vessel into utter darkness as the lights flashed out. Immediately the hull pitched to a severe angle and plunged out of control to the unknown depths as seawater cascaded into the submarine through damaged pipes and ruptured seams in the forward torpedo room.

The crew, paralysed by fear, realised that unless their downward plunge could somehow be arrested they would soon be crushed to death by the ever-increasing pressure. Klaus Becker attributed his misfortune to a mine and knew he could not continue the death-plunge or his submarine would soon become an iron coffin for himself and his crew members.

There was no choice but to order all ballast tanks blown and take what chance there was on the surface.

As high-pressure air hissed into the ballast tanks, the hand on the depth indicator mercifully slowed to a halt and began to back-track—now they knew they were headed for the surface. The frantic engineers could not control the ascent as they discovered that their forward hydroplanes and diving gear had been disabled by the mine explosion—the submarine shot to the surface and almost leapt out of the water in a whoosh of bubbles and foaming froth.

The Chlorine Gas Threat

As repairs continued, Captain Becker realised the full extent of the damage his craft had suffered and radioed a report to The Commander-in-Chief of Submarines in Germany. Soon he would make a second frantic call to report that his craft was now unmanageable. Salt water leaking through its damaged seams might soon reach the batteries and mix with the battery acid to generate deadly chlorine gas.

Nothing strikes greater terror into the heart of a submariner than the thought of being trapped in an iron hull with acrid chlorine gas seeping from the battery compartment. Two or three whiffs is enough to set the lungs bleeding and throat burning with unbearable torment—no death is more agonising than that from chlorine gas.

Berlin responded by ordering him to abandon ship after he had opened its sea cocks to sink the vessel—the German Admiralty had no intention of seeing their submarine fall into enemy hands.

Fortunately for the crew, no British warships appeared and evacuation took place in an orderly fashion. Inflatable dinghies were stored in large watertight lockers outside the pressure hull of the submarine. All forty-eight submariners took to the dinghies—all were young, some barely in their teens. The eldest could boast a ripe old age of twenty-three.

Hitler’s Navy of youngsters were about to sample life on the Emerald Isle.

The Curragh

The strange visitors to Galley Head departed almost as suddenly as they had arrived. Early next morning the authorities arrived at the lighthouse to whisk them off to the Curragh and internment—on arrival at Kildare they were once again united with their colleagues from the Courtmacsherry rescue.

Ireland was then a poor nation and conditions and food at the Curragh were anything but rosy for the Teutonic internees. However, the fare proved far better than those that prevailed in starving Germany and the natives were friendly. The internees were given daily wages. Some even took up part-time work cutting turf in the bogs of Kildare—the authorities obligingly looked the other way.

All forty-eight had survived. In a war where approximately 30,000 of the 40,000 men who served in U-boats died—a casualty rate unmatched in modern warfare—U-260’s entire crew lived through their operational career and their final crisis. The submarine never killed anyone. Not in its wolf pack operations, not in its death.

The Boat’s War

The U-260’s career spanned but three years since its construction in 1942 at the German shipyard of Vegesacker Werft. The submarine was captained by Herbertus Purkhold on its first five transatlantic voyages. On a December 1943 patrol, the U-260 formed part of a dreaded wolf pack in company of U-591, U-225, U-406 and U-356. This formidable force attacked convoy number ONS-154 and torpedoed and sank fourteen of its ships to the loss of only one of its own submarines, U-356.

Two weeks into his patrol Captain Purkhold encountered a violent hurricane which he recorded in his log:

“Wind force 11, south-west hurricane, while trying to run before the storm at full speed the boat dived twice with hatch open. By blowing tanks and putting my helm over, and reducing speed, I managed to hold her reasonably well on the surface. To remain on the bridge was impossible. Within half an hour the Captain and the watch were half drowned. Five tons of water poured into the boat in no time, through the conning tower hatch, the voice pipe and the diesel ventilating shaft.”

During this storm, Purkhold observed that one ship rolled over and sank with all hands due to the severity of conditions.

Purkhold was later replaced by Oberleutnant Klaus Becker as Captain of U-260. Under its new commander the submarine made two patrols to the Bay of Biscay before being transferred to Norway for modifications in September 1944. The U-260 was fitted with her snorkel in August 1944 just prior to her eighth wartime patrol—the first practical and commercially viable snorkel system, developed by Hellmuth Walter. This device allowed submarines to run underwater on their diesel engines by breathing fresh air through a long tube that extended above the water.

A submerged U-boat travelling on its diesels could not be detected by the enemy and the snorkel protruding over water could easily have its reflective qualities eliminated, thus making it invisible to all-seeing enemy radar. The innovation came too late to affect the war’s outcome

Discovery

The wreck site of U-260 was discovered in 1975 by local fisherman Colin Barnes after he lost some gear—he suspected it had snagged on wreckage and duly noted the position. For a time, it was presumed that this could be the wreck of the cargo ship Counsellor (which sank in 1917), but a subsequent inspection dive by Joe Barry, Barnes’ diving friend, established that the wreck was a submarine, not the expected cargo ship.

By the mid-1990s, a steady stream of enthusiasts made their way to Union Hall, gear loaded for deep water and cold. At the helm was Nic Gotto, skipper of Sundancer II. He knew the site as well as anyone, ferrying groups out four miles past High Island, out to the edge where history rested.

For many, Nic’s boat was the gateway. He gave access to the relic—a piece of Europe’s unfinished business, lying quietly on the seabed. The stream soon swelled as curious divers from all over the world flocked to see the German submarine—all agreed it was a most fascinating experience to visit what is now generally regarded as one of the world’s most intact U-boat wrecks.

Sadly, Nic Gotto lost his life to the sport he loved so much on 24th July 1998. Nic died as a result of a diving accident off the Stags rocks outside Glandore. He is sadly missed by all who knew him, especially his countless friends in the diving world.

What Remains

Paddy O’Sullivan, who researched the U-260’s history for years, described what remains of the wreck this way:

Today the U-260 lies in dim greenish light on a rocky sea floor, the seabed at forty-two to forty-six metres depending on the tide. Its conning tower is colonised by marine organisms such as stalked Metridia and anemones interspersed with bright orange-coloured dead man’s fingers which sway in the currents as if to beckon divers closer.

The attack periscope with its cyclops eye is extended as if scouting the horizon. The integrity of the periscope has not been compromised by more than half a century of immersion in the chilly Atlantic off Glandore. Its orange-sized lens is still watertight and, peering through it, one can see precision brass gears linked to prisms and focusing lenses.

On the port side adjacent to the conning tower, Walter’s snorkel is neatly hinged flush with the deck. As one swims towards the bow the graceful cigar-shaped contours end in a confusion of torn scrap iron and dangling torpedo tubes—no doubt the damage wrought by the mine explosion that sent it plunging to eternity in 1945.

The wreck continues to stir the imagination, though she will never return to Wilhelmshaven to replenish her fuel or supplies. Her death-dealing torpedoes will never be fired in anger to ravage Allied convoys—her electric motors that once hummed as they provided welcome warmth to chilled hands of crew members are now cold and silent.

Her once-gleaming Mann-Diesel engines are now blanketed in silt and entombed in an engine room of perpetual darkness. Her snorkel and periscope bear mute testament to the genius of men like Walter and Zeiss.

Her rusting hull will stare for eternity at a desolate landscape—a reminder of a war that achieved little more than the slaughter of millions of lives and the destruction of towns and cities on an unprecedented scale.

I haven’t been back. The work was done in those twelve minutes—Paddy’s history documented in images, a survival story captured. Nic continued taking divers to the wreck until his death in 1998, opening access to history for countless others. The wreck sits there still, over forty metres down off Glandore, waiting for the next diver to descend into the green. But my relationship with U-260 is complete. Sometimes twelve minutes is all you need.

AUTHOR’S NOTE:

The historical narrative for this essay draws substantially from the research and writing of Paddy O’Sullivan (Patrick O’Sullivan), whose years-long work with German naval archives and contact with surviving U-260 crew members provided details no other source could offer. These articles appeared in SubSea Magazine (December 1996) and the Rathbarry-Ardfield Journal (August 1999), among others. The photographs mentioned were published in SubSea Magazine (Autumn 1996), Technology Ireland (October 1996), and DIVER Magazine (July 1997).

It was harder to find the way in the dark. I knew the route because I had seen it during the day, but now, in the predawn twilight, it felt different. The first part was easy—a satisfying crunch of hiking boots on gravel, lit only by the beam of my head torch. As I started to make my way across the fields towards the cliff edge, there were moments when I wasn't quite sure that I was wandering off track. I checked the time – it was still 40 minutes before sunrise, and I settled these giddy thoughts.

I found a rhythmic stride, my camera pack backpack snug and steady, and I carried my tripod in my hand. Holding down brambles or giving a steady hand to get over a low fence was helpful. Soon, I heard the distant sound of the waves at the base of the cliffs. I was near. I was outside the arable land, and a bounce underfoot from the clifftop grasses was springing me forward. The final, narrow path through Gorse and Heather was easier to follow but also more treacherous to trip over. Thorny gorse scratched at my jacket and pack, and I recovered from a couple of clumsy stumbles in my enthusiasm to get set up at the tomb.

Then I was upon it – Leaba na Prionsa, the Prince's bed, also known locally as the Chieftain's grave. I had visualised a sunrise photograph and planned to do it on an autumn morning with favourable conditions. It looked good as I extended and locked the tripod legs. The backpack is off, the camera is out, and the wide-angle lens and filter set are already in place. The light was rising, and I paused to look at these 4,000-year-old stone slabs, speckled white with age. I couldn't help but reach out and touch what felt like the essence of time itself.

Creating photographs at first light nurtures a sense of awe and wonder like no other time. You feel like you have the entire world of rising light to yourself. To have and maintain a sense of wonder in places near and familiar is a gift that fuels and compels creativity, as well as the drive to share the beauty and stillness of fleeting moments.

Officially an 'unclassified megalithic tomb', this ancient burial site predates written history. Many of these tombs are located in Ireland, particularly in Cork and Kerry. Where I stand now, alongside a tripod ready to seize slices of time, is the oldest known connection to our forebears in the Kinsale area.

The great thing about prehistory is that it leaves so much to our imagination. Who were the people who lived here a hundred generations ago? Who is buried here? Why this place? The questions are endless. The sun is now beginning to lift over the horizon just by the small Sovereign island. Its two larger neighbors are directly out to sea, to the south. It is time. I finalise the focus and exposure settings and trip the shutter. A moment of dawn light, the tiniest fraction of time since fellow humans built this tomb to honour those passing to the next life.

Historians tell us that folklore provides clues to the beliefs and rituals of centuries past. Further west along the coast, what we now know as the Bull Rock was said to be the gateway to the spirit world. A colossal cave runs right through this barren offshore island known as Teach Donn - the house of Donn, guardian of the spirit world. As the sun rose higher, it lifted the chill of the autumn morning. I packed the equipment to get ready to go and took out a small flask of hot tea. It never tasted so good.

There's something profoundly moving about the convergence of technologies separated by four millennia—the carefully positioned stone slabs intended to preserve memory across generations, and my modern camera with its own mission of capturing fleeting light. Both are attempts to hold time still, to mark moments of significance. The ancient builders used limestone and positioning relative to the sun; I use sensors and glass. But our human impulse remains unchanged—to witness, to remember, to preserve.

The Irish landscape is layered with these connections between past and present. Standing at Leaba na Prionsa as the light changes, I'm reminded that photography itself is an act of marking thresholds—the brief transition from night to day, the space between sea and sky, the boundary between what is remembered and what is lost. The megalith before me has stood as a sentinel through countless such transitions, weathering storms and seasons, witnessing the slow transformation of the surrounding landscape.

"I'm away to Cootehill for the bus to Cavan", he announced, climbing into the passenger seat before I could ask where he was headed.

"Hop in", I smiled.

I spotted him on the road ahead, arm outstretched, and thumb enthusiastically stretched skyward. Actually, I saw his bright blue, two-wheeled shopping cart first, which he now manoeuvred between his knees as he settled in. I was driving on the quiet country roads that wind through the rolling drumlins of south Monaghan. As I waited for my new passenger to settle, I noticed the narrow, overgrown laneway, which I presumed led to his home. On his slight frame, he wore a black bomber-style jacket, blue jeans and dusty patent shoes scuffed from many miles of country roads. Large tortoiseshell glasses framed his narrow face, while his weathered skin looked roughly shaven, showing specks of grey stubble that had escaped the razor. An oversized woolly hat perched high on his head kept the morning chill at bay, the extra space on top mimicking a hair bun.

An older man hitching a lift is an unusual sight in modern Ireland. As we have developed motorways with 120-kilometre-per-hour speed limits, hitching has disappeared on our main roads but remains common in rural areas poorly served by public transport. Urban dwellers and drivers overlook those seeking to share some or all of their motoring journeys, possibly because it is rare today. Or, maybe we need to be in a slower, more open frame of mind to be aware of a person on the roadside up ahead, waiting and hoping. It could also be age and life experience that retains an open channel of awareness to someone 'thumbing a lift' – those of us old enough to have done so ourselves being more open to it. As soon as my new passenger settled in, I moved back onto the quiet road; no cars had passed either way in some minutes.

Initially, he stared ahead, enjoying the elevated position of a van seat and the view over the ditches.

"Them sheeps ma' brother-in-laws", he announced loudly to the windscreen.

"It's all sheep in these parts?" I asked.

Silence. A few moments passed before he made a similarly loud declaration.

"Cousin 'a mine used to live up there", he said, his arm raised and pointing directly towards the spot, which happened to be across my vision. I ducked to keep an eye on the road—another pause.

"It's a grand day", I ventured, making my declaration and opening the question to debate. But, glancing over, he stared resolutely ahead, and it dawned on me that he had not heard a word I said.

A childhood memory flooded my mind, its sluice gate opening with the clarity of the crisp morning light. My brother, sister and I were seated on a large armchair at the end of the kitchen-dining area of our 1960s semi-detached home in the then-expanding Limerick city. My parents were chatting with friends over tea while we tried to be 'good'. Our visitors were Seamus and Dolores, and she was the first deaf person I had known as a child.

She had an unusual way of speaking, which caught the attention of my ever-curious younger brother. Her diction was different to ours and was not going to escape investigation.

"Why is she talking like that?" He asked and got an elbow in the ribs from my sister.

"She can't hear; she's deaf. Shut up", she whispered in his ear.

At age 7, my brother spent much of his life beginning every sentence with the word "why?". This beautiful curiosity drove us half mad.

"Why can't she hear?", he promptly asked, true to form.

"Shush", my sister said, trying to contain his expanding questions, now quietly waiting their turn.

"But if she's deaf, she can't hear me", he said, glancing at both of us in turn, the logic flawless.

"She can lip-read", I chimed in. Then, in a rare departure from form, he opened the following question with a 'what'.

"What's lip-reading?" He asks.

"She can tell what you are saying by watching your mouth move", I tell him. His eyes widened further, this superpower demanding further scrutiny. He stared at the adults as a revelation dawned on him.

"I…, he announced, can lip-read", both hands rising simultaneously, index fingers at the ready to plug his ears. My sister and I suppressed giggles as he stared intently at the adults chatting. At least he would be quiet for a few minutes. Dolores was at ease, her glance moving between those around the table, topping up her tea before rejoining the conversation.

"I know what they're saying," the novice lip-reader announced, his fingers still in his ears, his lips moving to the rhythm of the adult chat.

"You can still hear them", my sister says.

"Why is this she deaf?"

Normal service resumed.

"Why does she talk so loud?"

The traffic jam of 'whys' began to move after a long tailback.

Later that day, I spoke with my mum on the phone, telling her about the sudden recollection I thought was long erased from my memory's hard drive. Sometimes, scenes and instances are only moved to the recycle bin and can arise with a suitable prompt.

She told me that Dolores' hearing loss resulted from measles as a young child. While there is a long list of causes of deafness before birth, it is less common in early childhood. Profound hearing loss can occur after mumps, measles or meningitis. I can only imagine that the resources to help a child with hearing loss in the 1940s and 50s in Ireland were probably little to non-existent. Lip-reading, or speech-reading as it is also known, is a skill that comes relatively quickly to children and young adults but can be challenging for some. As babies, we learn our first words by closely watching our mother's mouth, facial movements, and hearing sounds. Speech-reading is a more complete description of a complex skill of looking, observing and making sense of communication in context. Even the often used moniker, the 'third ear', gives the impression of lip-reading being a passive skill. Still, people who are deaf or hard of hearing will tell you it is exhausting to make sense of a conversation using visual clues alone.

As we approached the junction to join the main road to Cootehill, a geographic marker again broke our comfortable silence.

"Aunt o' mine used to live up there", he said, this time thankfully pointing left. He took a long look through the passing trees.

"Jackson... Jackson, she was"as if I might know her.

A few minutes later, we approached the centre of Cootehill, and the traffic naturally slowed.

"I'll get out here", he announced, reaching for the door handle before I stopped. I indicated and pulled in.

"All the best", I said as he manoeuvred the blue shopping trolley to the ground and swung the door closed. I smiled as I saw a mouthed "thank you" that I couldn't hear.

Making my way out of the village, I mused that those who live without sound are the most comfortable with silence. I thought of the beautiful human resilience of navigating through life, developing superpowers to clear hurdles as they arise. And the bus to Cavan.

'In these northern waters, time is measured differently. Not by clocks or calendars but by the eternal rhythm of tides. The First Nations peoples of these shores understood this - how the waters would surge and retreat, how they would tremble the very foundations of islands, how they would dictate the patterns of all life. To truly know these waters is to learn this ancient wisdom.'

- Chief Dan George, Tsleil-Waututh Nation, 1967

The ancient cedars loom through ribbons of morning fog, their shadows gradually revealing the bones of the British Columbia coastline. After twenty years, I have returned to these northern waters, drawn back to explore the diverse marine life and dramatic underwater landscapes of Vancouver Island. The waters here were the inspiration for my first book, Cool Waters Emerald Seas, born from a journey aboard the Nautilus Explorer in 2004 when we circumnavigated the island, exploring its diverse underwater realms. That trip revealed the extraordinary nature of these northern waters - from the pristine walls of Browning Pass to the rich marine life of Rock of Life. Yet Nakwakto Rapids, one of the planet's most challenging cold water dive sites, remained unknown to me then - its existence and remarkable nature revealed only on this return trip when our skipper described planning our entire week's diving schedule around a single slack tide window. Each day leading up to Thursday's planned attempt, we consulted weather reports and discussed conditions with the boat's captain, hoping circumstances would align for this dive I had only just learned about but now could hardly wait to experience.

Our skipper reduces speed as we enter Seymour Inlet, the landscape closing in around us. Ancient cedars and spruce grip the steep shoreline, their branches draped with pale green Usnea lichen that seems to glow in the filtered morning light. These forest-clad walls rise nearly 3,000 feet from waters that plunge 700 feet deep, creating a fjord-like passage that channels both water and history through its narrow confines. Looking at the quiet shoreline now, it's hard to imagine that less than sixty years ago, this inlet supported thriving Indigenous communities, their lives attuned to the rhythms of tide and season that had sustained their ancestors for millennia.

The skipper, noting my gaze toward a distant shoreline to the north, speaks quietly. "The Gwa'sala-'Nakwaxda'xw band of native people lived here until '64," he says, letting the date hang in the air. "Government moved everyone to Tsulquate reserve near Port Hardy." His words carry the weight of a tragedy still raw in living memory. In that summer of 1964, these proud people - distinct from but often confused with the Kwakiutl (Kwagu'ł) of Fort Rupert - were forcibly relocated from their traditional territories. The waters we traverse were once their highways and hunting grounds, the forests their gardens and gathering places. When officials burned their homes to prevent return, centuries of connection to place were severed, leaving only empty shores and memories. The tides that once guided their seasonal movements still pulse through these channels with ancient power.

Our motion changes as we enter the approach to Nakwakto Rapids. Here, multiple inlets funnel through a passage barely 400 meters wide, creating one of the planet's most powerful tidal flows. At its peak, currents can reach 14.5 knots - faster than most boats can power against. Even now, approaching slack tide, we can see the water's surface betraying the forces beneath, small whirlpools appearing and vanishing like spirits.

At the heart of this maelstrom sits Turret Rock, known locally as Tremble Island. The Gwa'sala-'Nakwaxda'xw people named it thus, saying the island itself would shake when the waters reached their full fury. Science now confirms what traditional knowledge long knew - these are among the fastest tidal rapids on Earth, moving nearly four billion cubic feet of water with each exchange. The forces that make this place so challenging for divers have also created something extraordinary beneath the surface - a unique community of marine life found almost nowhere else on the planet.

The preparation for diving Nakwakto demands a peculiar combination of patience and urgency. While we wait for the precise moment of slack tide, every piece of equipment must be methodically checked and secured. The skipper has planned this day for months, calculating the brief window when the rapids' fury will ease enough to allow safe entry. Even now, an hour before slack, the water moves with such power that bull kelp stands horizontal, like pennants in a gale.

"Maybe twenty minutes of diveable time today," our skipper advises, studying charts that show the complex interplay of multiple tidal streams. The skipper studies his tide tables meticulously. In these waters, timing defines the narrow margin between possibility and impossibility.

I leave my underwater camera behind without hesitation. This first dive in Nakwakto deserves undivided attention, a chance to simply experience these remarkable waters. If fortune grants another visit, I'll know what photographic possibilities await. My buddies and I perform our final equipment checks as the boat maneuvers into the lee of Turret Rock. The water temperature shows 9°C on our computers - cold enough to demand respect, but typical for these northern waters.

Our entry is cautious but deliberate. Even in the relative shelter of the island, the water holds latent energy, like a runner catching breath between sprints. Descending through emerald waters, the first thing that strikes me is the density of life clinging to every surface. The rocks are transformed into living tapestries by countless red gooseneck barnacles, their translucent stalks glowing with hemoglobin-rich blood. Unlike their black-pigmented cousins in the shallows, these deep-water variants display their internal chemistry openly, creating a submarine landscape that seems almost artificial in its vibrancy.

Among the barnacles, feather-duster worms extend their spiral crowns like living flowers, each one a miracle of natural engineering. Their tentacled heads, resembling Victorian chimney sweeps' brushes, filter the nutrient-rich waters swirling past. Everything here is adapted to not just survive but thrive in conditions that would tear less specialized creatures away.

We fin carefully toward the channel's edge, watching the bull kelp for signs of current strength. Earlier, these giant algae streamed out like flags in a gale; now they hang almost vertically, marking our brief window of opportunity. The rock faces beyond the kelp forest reveal even more spectacular congregations of life. Every surface hosts competing colonies of creatures, each adapted to harness the energy of the rapids. Jewel anemones create patches of living color that would humble any artist's palette, while red soft corals pulse gently in the dying current.

As we move through these waters, I reflect on how this place has drawn me back. Twenty years ago, photographing the vibrant life of Vancouver Island's waters, I couldn't have known how those images would lead to a book, or how that book would lead me back here. Now, without my camera, I find myself seeing these waters differently - not through a viewfinder, but with the direct wonder of a first-time visitor.

The forty minutes we spend in Nakwakto's embrace pass with the peculiar time-shift that divers know well. Each moment demands complete presence - monitoring the kelp's movement, checking our position relative to Turret Rock, watching our computers. Yet simultaneously, the dive feels suspended in time, as if we've entered one of those rare slack periods in life itself, when past and present flow together like mixing currents.

Our ascent comes as the first pulse of the returning tide makes itself known - a subtle but unmistakable shift in the water's energy. Breaking the surface in the lee of Tremble Island, we find ourselves momentarily wordless. The skipper's knowing grin asks the question that takes us several moments to answer. How do you describe a dive that represents not just the culmination of twenty years' anticipation, but a return to waters that shaped your understanding of what cold water diving could be?

Later, as our boat turns south toward Port Hardy, I watch Turret Rock recede into the fog that's returned to cloak the shoreline. These waters have witnessed so much - the traditional lives of the Gwa'sala-'Nakwaxda'xw people, their forced departure, and now the slow process of reconciliation. The unique creatures that thrive in these rapids - the blood-red barnacles, the feather-duster worms, the tenacious bull kelp - have their own story of adaptation and survival to tell.

My journey with these waters began in 2004, leading to words and images that attempted to capture the essence of cold water diving. Twenty years later, experiencing Nakwakto without a camera has revealed something deeper: how some places demand more than documentation. They require us to simply be present, to witness their power and beauty directly, and to acknowledge both the natural and human histories that flow through them like the eternal tides.