Diving WWII shipwrecks in Trug Lagoon

There is something intriguing about the juxtaposition of life growing on relics of death, of nature reclaiming man's grand creations.  I just returned from a week diving the wrecks of Truk Lagoon in Micronesia (to get there from the U.S., you fly to Guam and hang a left).  I've never been a big fan of wreck diving, generally preferring sea life - fish, pelagics (rays, sharks, etc.) and reefs instead.  But Truk's wrecks have been sunken so long now (nearly seven decades) that the wrecks themselves have become artificial reefs.  My goal was to photograph as much life on the wrecks as possible, not just wrecks and artifacts.  Fortunately, I had plenty of opportunities to do so.

Getting to Truk, or Chuuk (rhymes with look) in the local language, is no simple task.  From Seattle, it took me four flights (changing planes in San Francisco, Honolulu, and Guam) and roughly 18 hours, and nearly 24 hours to get home.  But for wreck diving, there's simply no place on earth like it, so the long trip getting there is just part of the "price of admission," as it is many of the world's other best dive destinations.

Home to a Japanese naval fleet late in WWII, dozens of Japanese warships and support vessels were in Truk Lagoon until February of 1944.  A few days before February 18th, a U.S. reconnaissance plane flew over and took detailed photos of the fleet.  The Japanese commander, sensing what that portended, immediately ordered most of his battleships to leave the lagoon and head into the open ocean, where they would be less vulnerable.  Nevertheless, when U.S. forces hit Truk with a massive airstrike dubbed "Operation Hailstone" on the February 18th, dozens of ships remained and were sunken.  Most were huge (400-500 ft) support vessels, merchant marine ("Maru") and cruise ships converted to naval ships for the war, but several battleships remained as well.  The airstrike severed the lifeline that made a fleet base possible, and drove the Japanese permanently from the area.  They also left a graveyard of shipwrecks that has drawn divers from the four corners of the earth ever since.

The bow of a shipwreck, resting slightly askewon the sandy
bottom, is plush with life. The silhouette above is the dive boat.

The picture above, and the one on the right, are two of many I shot on this trip with Canon's new 8-15mm circular fisheye lens, which is capable of capturing a true circular 180 degree view, from straight up to straight down, and straight left to straight right.

I, along with the other 13 passenger/divers - 10 Americans and 3 Brits - lived aboard a dive boat called the M.V. Odyssey.  It is one of the most comfortable liveaboard dive boats in the world (certainly the largest cabins I've ever seen!).  I, and most of the other guests, were very happy with the crew, dive operations and accomodations, although the food was merely "OK" relative to other liveaboards I've been on.  The briefings for each wreck were extensive, preparing us not only with a thorough detailing of each wreck's layout and key points of interest (engine rooms, weaponry, artifacts, etc.), but with its history as well.

This trip entailed the consistently deepest dives I've done, with virtually every wreck in 100 fsw (feet of salt water) or deeper.  I'd say the average depth I reached per dive was 115ft.  Fortunately, we were able to dive nitrox 30 (enhanced air with 30% oxygen instead of the 21% in regular air), which enabled us to remain clear-headed and remain down longer with less risk of DCS (the "bends").  In the nearly 900 dives I've done in the past, I had never had a "deco" dive with required stops before (that's no big accomplishment; it just means I'm a conservative diver...and I'm big so I get low on air before deco becomes necessary).  But I did two deco dives on this trip.  The deepest wreck, with its deck at 165 fsw and cargo holds at 185 fsw, was the wreck of the San Francisco Maru (so named for its maiden port-of-call before the war).  For that, we all dove nitrox 24, but I was still a little "narc'd" (nitrogen narcosis, similar to the nitrous oxide or "laughing gas" you get at the dentist).  But it was the highlight of the trip, with three tanks on the deck and the huge bow gun below.  We all wished we could have dived it multiple times, but unfortunately it was on our last day of diving, so we only dove it once.

Bow gun on the wreck of the San Francisco Maru

Click here to see my entire TRIP GALLERY from this trip, along with some commentary.  All photos in the gallery were shot with a Canon 5D Mark II camera inside an Aquatica housing, with two Inon Z-240 strobes.

I also shot one 4-MINUTE VIDEO with my new (XMAS present from Cheri!) little GoPro Hero2 camera.  This was the first (and last) dive on which I used it this trip, because the flat BlurFix red-filter shattered (at the end point of the video) because I exceeded the lens' approved 100fsw depth! :-O  Fortunately, the GoPro itself remained intact and watertight, so all I lost was the add-on lens.  Nevertheless, the first few minutes of this video give you an idea of what diving on a shipwreck is like!