Sunday, October 7, 2007

Truk Lagoon, Micronesia











CHUUK, FEDERATED STATES OF MICRONESIA
September 30, 2007

We’ve just ended our week aboard the Truk Odyssey and a fantastic week it was! The boat itself is awesome, probably one of the top liveaboards we do anywhere in the world….crew is the best! From Nick, our Captain; to Jeff, our Cruise Director and Dive Instructor; Smiling Sam, Shy Ken & Outgoing Madison, the “dive guys”; and Gena, the chef; Yori, our hostess ; Mike the Engineer, Stan & Mika; all worked really hard to make it a fabulous week.

Cabins are huge and extremely comfortable, dive deck is well laid out and efficient; huge camera table for all our cameras and steel 104’s as well as aluminum 80’s and other various assorted tank sizes! Nitrox for the week was pumped at a consistent 30% which gave us enough MOD to get to all but the deepest wrecks.

Oh yes, the wrecks! We dove the most popular “Marus” in the Lagoon, “Maru” meaning freighter. Among the ships we dove were the Heian, Yamagiri, Shinkoku, Fujikawa, Unkai, Sankisan, Rio de Janeiro, Kiyosumi, Nippo & of course, most of the group did the San Francisco Maru. Several dives were also made on the “Betty” Bomber. Some wrecks deserved more than one dive, others we just dove once because of their depth & what they offered as far as attractions. All wrecks are covered in hard & soft corals with lots and lots of fish life on them. Artifacts are strewn along the decks as well as in the various holds. Penetration was made easy with the dive guides. Engine rooms, operating rooms, pilot houses and holds filled with bullets, tanks, airplanes, barrels, shoes, etc. were explored. Some of the wrecks are in better physical shape than others; on some of them we could see some significant deterioration in the wreck structures themselves from three years ago. Of course, they’ve been at the bottom of the Lagoon since 1944 and even high quality steel deteriorates in salt water in that amount of time!

Down time in between dives (up to 5 a day!) went by quickly with books, downloading & analyzing photos, comparing dives and playing Euchre! The downstairs salon is well equipped with lots of books in their library as well as an extensive DVD collection for your viewing pleasure! The crew was very happy that a bunch of the group had brought some new movies so they could catch up on the latest “flicks”!

We’re off to Pohnpei later today after a short stop at the Truk Blue Lagoon Resort…flights arrive/leave Micronesia late in the evenings. More later from The Village in Pohnpei!