Country diary: life flourishes among the skeletons of scuttled steamships

Glimps Holm, Orkney: Sunken anti-submarine defences are now home to sunstars and sea anemones, crabs and lobstersThe wrecks protrude from the water on both sides of the causeway: the ruins of steamships, intentionally sunk in the narrow straits between small islands during the first and second world wars, to protect the naval fleet from German submarines. These "blockships", which rise like a rusted tiara from the waves, can be easily reached from the shore at low tide.We wade out from the sand at Glimps Holm, an uninhabited islet set low in the water, and swim out to where the great underbelly of the SS Reginald - resting here since 1915 - is bared and open to the elements, corroded to a deep blood-clot brown. Fulmars gabble upon its higher reaches, bedding down wherever they can find a foothold. Dry grasses growing in thin seams along the ledges of the hull shiver in the breeze, 10 feet above the water. Continue reading...