A team of divers about to embark on an epic journey across the world were expected to arrive in Orkney today, Saturday, October 4.

Orkney’s Scapa Flow has been chosen as the starting point for a group of divers who hope to circle the world experiencing the ten greatest shipwrecks on earth.

The ten week project – believed to be the first of its kind – will explore the wrecks, the history of their sinking, the wars and human stories behind each vessel.

It will take the divers across the globe, from Orkney to Europe, Asia and Australia and is said to be a “must for the diving fraternity”.

Scapa Flow was the scene of the greatest scuttling in maritime history when the crews of the captive German fleet, in an act of defiance after World War One, opened the vessels’ seacocks and hatches to send their warships – some of the largest built – to the seabed.

Monty Halls, a dive journalist based in London, has set up the world trip, with the Flow at the forefront of the expedition, which is due to begin on October 6.

“Scapa Flow is universally recognised as one of the premiere wreck dive location in the world. When I sat down with my project manager, out of the ten that had to be included, Scapa Flow was up there as one of the easy choices.”

Monty (36) has dived in the Flow once, in the late 1990s, and is eager to return to explore further under the guidance of local diver boat operator, John Thornton.

“One of the things about Scapa is the temperate, cold water diving which is something people underestimate. Because the water is cold, it is very oxygen rich so you tend to end up with lots of systems, wildlife and seaweed in the water.”

From Scapa Flow the group will move to the Mediterranean to see the vehicle ferry, Zenobia off Cyprus.

The Thistlegorm in the Red Sea is set aside for week three. Discovered in the 1970s, this is the wreck of a British merchant vessel sunk during World War Two, while week four will see the group tackle the Japanese wrecks off Palau, whose 300 rock islands are arguably the finest dive location in the world, with deep caves, teeming reefs and patrolling sharks.

Japanese Navy Fourth Fleet. In the same area at Vanuatu, the group will dive on the world’s largest and most intact World War Two wreck, the aircraft carrier, USS Coolridge.

Moving south to the Great Barrier Reef, the Yongala, which was sank by a cyclone in 1903, has a reputation as one of the greatest wildlife dives. While in the waters off New Zealand, the divers will explore the Lementov passenger liner, and the Rainbow Warrior, sunk by the French secret service.

Finally, during week ten, the group head for Grenada, and the Bianca C, known as the Titanic of the Caribbean.

Monty Halls was among a group to discover a sunken city off the south east coast of India last year.“I took a group of scientists out there and we found a vast sunken site of ruins. Because it was such a remote area no-one had dived it before. We discovered six temples with all their surrounding little buildings. Legend has it that the Gods became angry that the city was so beautiful and sent a huge tidal wave to flood the city. Other theories have it that the sea water rose at the end of the Ice Age or that coastal erosion led to the city’s downfall 2,000 years ago.”