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Home  Trip Reports TRUK LAGOON 2007
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SEAWOLVES dive TRUK LAGOON
29th March – 9th April 2007
By Cleve Nicolle
Thursday 29th March arrived and in various groups and by different airlines we met at Cairns airport. As we had a fair amount of time to kill before our midnight flight to Guam so we headed to the Cairns colonial club which was to be our return accommodation and sat by the pool and knocked back a few beers.
Five of us were on this trip, Rod Mills, Neil Stokes, Dave turner, Cleve Nicolle and non member Kon Kalagropoulos.
We headed down to the check in counter for continental airlines and went through much drama of checking in baggage as the airline was on a strict weight policy, after shifting gear around amongst the 5 of us and pulling torches apart at the counter the women then asks if we packed our own bags and was it all our own belongings after watching and helping us repack, I said you have got to be kidding and we headed of to the departure lounge.
We had a good flight to Guam and arrived about 5.30am. By the time we got through customs, homeland security etc we did not have a long wait for our flight to TRUK.
Another good flight and we arrived at Truk around 10.30 in torrential rain and were met by staff from the Truk Stop Hotel. The airport has had a major upgrade since my last trip in 06 which apparently was paid for by Chinese government. The airport now has tiles and air-conditioning.
We headed down to the Truk stop hotel in pouring rain and I have to say that they have not spent any money on roads or building improvements.
We checked in and got settled into our large air-conditioned rooms complete with TV and DVD player. We decided to wait till Saturday for our first dives as we were all buggered after long trip.
We wandered down the main street past all the shops in the rain and mud and were able to walk faster than the cars could travel, we grabbed a phone card for mobile and then went shopping for beer which was not so easy as the ship was not due till next day and all they had left was a beer called Red Horse at about 8% alcohol. Rod thought we should get a carton which we did not think a good idea. We went back to the hotel and cracked a coldie and these beers were disgusting, took half hour to get the first one down. Needless to say these beers lasted the week and were left in the fridge when we departed.
Saturday morning we are ready to dive at 9.00am and our first dive was to be the Fujikawa Maru which was and aircraft transport ship laying upright in 35 mts and has the remains of quite a few aircraft that were being assembled at the time of sinking. Also has an awesome engine room and machine shop to explore.
Water temp is 30c and fantastic visibility and the outside of the wreck is covered with lots of hard and soft corals.
We snorkelled the upside down wreck of oil tanker Hoyo Maru and then we dived the Hein Maru which lays on its port side in 35 metres of water.
This is Truk’s largest wreck and was used as a submarine tender.
We explored the forward holds and saw lots of long lance torpedoes and other munitions. We worked our way to the stern and saw submarine periscopes on the promenade deck, the massive props and finished the dive back at the bow where you can still read the name on the side of the ship.
After the days diving we headed back to the hotel, cleaned our gear and went into town to grab some decent beers. We settled into Rod, Fingers and Kons room to watch video footage of the day and sink a few coldies before evening meal. The meals are simple but very good at the Truk Stop and no risk of getting crook.
During the course of the week we dived 14 wrecks, snorkelled several others and did an awesome shark dive at Shark Island, we also explored Japanese ruins on different Islands.
Ships Dived were the Fujikawa, Heian, Gosie, Hoki, Kansho, Nippo, Rio de janero, Sankisan, Yamagiri and Sanfransico Maru;s. Oil tanker Shinkoku and destroyer Fumitsuki, we snorkelled the destroyer Sutsuki and oil tanker Hoyo plus unnamed wreck known as the bow high wreck.
Also dived aircraft wrecks of large 4 engine Emily flying boat and twin engine Betty bomber.
As we dived lots of wrecks which are all fantastic dives still full of all the war materials they were carrying plus remains of a lot of the Japanese Sailors that went down with the ships I will only give a brief outline of what I considered best dives of the trip.
Nippo Maru sits upright with a list to port in around 56 mts of water.
Fantastic dive with lots to see such a tank on port side forward deck, howitzer field guns on starboard stern cargo holds still pointing up with tyres inflated after 65 years, large gun placements, rangefinders etc
The bridge has remains of the wheel and engine telegraphs which make good photos.
Hoki Maru was a captured New Zealand ship that sunk with a cargo of earthmoving equipment sitting upright in 50 odd metres.
Only the stern of this ships remains as the bow and bridge area have disintegrated when sunk.
Interesting things to see on this wreck are the Large John Deer bulldozer with hydraulic rams which was identified recently by the guy who designed this bulldozer, many tip and tray top trucks inside the holds which are still fully intact including full bodywork, seats etc,other bulldozers and tractors, road rollers, welders ,compressors etc.
Lots to look at but not a lot of time due to depth. Also radial aircraft engines in stern tween decks as you head back to exit point.
Sanfransico Maru sits upright in 63 metres of water and is one of the deepest dives in Truk lagoon.
We swam down to marker buoy cable and came down on the bow of the wreck. The water was crystal clear with 30 metre plus visibility and we then explored the holds 1-2 which are full of sea mines, detonator horns, large shells, torpedoes etc. Hold 3 is full of water trucks, steel, bomb trolleys etc. As you move toward the stern all the bridge area is rotted away and you can see Japanese baths etc behind the bridge.
Sitting on the deck on both port and starboard side of # 3 holds are 3 tanks and the remains of some trucks. The bow gun makes a good spot for a photo.
One thing that I noticed on diving was the amount of the large sea mines that have been removed from the wreck by Trukese for dynamite fishing as when I first dived this wreck in 1993 the hold was full to the hatch covers but now a layer of mines less which is a lot of mines considering the size of the cargo hold.
Shark Island is a long boat trip but definitely well worth while.
We arrived at the site and dropped into 25 metres of water and headed to the cleaning station for the sharks. On this dive we would have had 30 sharks arrive and got some really good footage. It is a bit freaky as when you finish the dive and head back to the boat the sharks follow you and circle around under you as you get into the boat. They then feed the sharks which makes a good show as they go nuts fighting for the food.
Truk lagoon is an awesome place to dive with fantastic visability, warm water and 50 odd large ships plus aircraft to dive let alone some amazing wall and reef dives to do.
There’s not a lot to do in the town as it is very poor place and very run down. Power goes out at least a couple of times a day but the Truk Stop Hotel has its own generator and water cleaning station.
There dive boats are decent size when running as they have no one to repair them properly. I spent some time keeping our boat running on this trip. They have a well equipped dive shop with tri-mix, nitrox, twin tanks etc available and good dive guides.
The week was over too quick and we were back on the plane to Guam where we had a day layover. We hired a mustang and went for a drive around the Island. Guam is a US territory and has a US naval base and air force base and is like going to Surfers Paradise.
We caught the Sunday evening flight back to Cairns and arrived around midnight. We went back to the Cairns colonial club and then sat around the pool and had quite a few bourbons till very late.
Monday we caught our flights back to Adelaide, was a great trip with a good bunch of guys who all enjoyed themselves and a couple of us have already booked return trip for October 08 this year.
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