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THE TIMELESS MAGIC OF TRUK LAGOON: DEEP BULLETS, BONES ,TANKS AND SHARKS
See the Gallery for images of this adventure!
The machine gun on deck was passed on the left as we entered the dark hull of the battleship. As we easily finned by the rusting ladders and torpedoed out opening in the side of the ship, the sunlight became dimmer and dimmer.
Soon we had turned on our underwater lights and began to use our guide reel that we had tied to an iron rafter at the last of sunlight. It was very dark as we explored the inner belly of the ship. A skull flashed before our lights as we shined the beam inward! Apparently a Japanese sailor had been blown into the metal of the ship as the torpedo bomb had exploded inward! The color of the skull bone was a shade of reddish beige. With our light we saw more bones scattered about the walls, rafters, and floor of the ship.
We were exploring the wrecks of Truk lagoon. The lagoon is a body of water located in the islands of Chuuk made up of Moen (the Capital), Dublon, Fefon, Uman, and a few smaller outer islands. Chuuk, in turn, is part of a group of islands that include the group of Palau, Yap, Pohnpei, and Kosrae that all form the Federated States of Micronesia. The significance of Truk is that during WWII, the Japanese had practically their entire fleet anchored in the lagoon. The sailors felt they were impenetrable because of the high mountains and natural defenses. While Okinowa and Iwo Jima were getting all the press, the United States launched "Operation Hailstorm," sinking hundreds of ships, planes, landing craft, and other military equipment into the waters of Truk. Most of these lie between 40 and 215 feet depth. It is a wreck divers dream.
Being a history buff, physician, amateur archeologist, and dive master-it was a perfect "getaway" to take my son who was also an advanced open water diver and had recently graduated from the University of Georgia. My son, Jake, and I both had experience diving in Australia so we were familiar with the marine life. However, nothing quite surpassed our expectations than Truk. We flew Continental Airlines from Atlanta to Houston then Hawaii. From Hawaii we flew to Majuro, Kwajalein (a U.S. military base), Kosrae, Pohnpei, and then Chuuk. From the small airport we were picked up and taken to the Thornfin dock. We were ferried by air raft to the Thornfin. After a good dinner, we meet the 67 year old Canadian captain and his 22 year old Philippine wife and children. On the schedule the next morning we noticed that the two deep dives were in the morning consisting of 187 feet and 157 feet! After the shock of depth, we soon learned about the routine of "hang tanks" and routine deco stops at 60 and 30 feet on the way up after the dives. Hang tanks were on ropes from the dive boats at depths of decompression so that as one ascended from "DEEP" dives, divers did not have to "waste" their air from their tanks on the time it took to decompress. Interestingly, on one of the hang tanks, Jake gave me the following signal international "shark" sign which allowed me to turn around and take a great picture of a huge SHARK!
The entire time in Truk was spent exploring ships, planes, submarines and finding thousands of bullets, ammo, bones, skulls, tanks, navy guns, pottery, unopened bottles of Japanese beer and simply WWII frozen in time forever.
Our schedule consisted of two wrecks in the morning, two wrecks in the afternoons, and a night dive every night.
One night while exploring a wreck with our primary lights, we even came face to face with a giant bull shark! The entire trip was definitely considered a "bad ass"
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