"LUST FOR RUST "

2009 TRIP REPORT

The whole section of the Oite Destroyer sitting in 60m of water

This year we had some of the best diving to date. There was 16 people in our group from all over the world. South Africa, England, Belguim, NZ, Ozzi, so most nations were well represented.

We all stayed as per usual at the Blue Lagoon Dive Resort. Again, we were looked after extremely well. I went a week before everyone else came to get all gear rigged, gasses mixed, sorb sorted, stage tanks assembled. I also had to make sure that the wrecks were still where I left them last year and managed to sneak out for a dive here and there. One of the first dives I did was on the Kiyosumi. Lying on its side a 137 long auxiliary cruiser. Sitting in 37 meters to the sand just one of about 35 wrecks sitting in this depth!! One the highlights of this dive is the Lamp locker room situated in the starboard section of the forecastle area. A tight, narrow passageway sees you ascending up into the doorway into the Lamp Locker room. These impressive lamps are about a foot in length. The shots below show how they lie in the room.

Lanterns and gas masks off the Kiyosumi Maru

Everyone arrived (bar one) at the airport looking like they had been dragged backwards through 5 airports, having eaten every foodgroup (except anything remotely health) and slept in every position known to man sitting upright!!!! Looking a little pasty everyone picked up as they knew that thelast 2-3 days of travel had finally come to an end and what was ahead of them was waiting (better be bloody worth it!!!!!)

Everyone got loaded into the Chuukese Limo's and we made our way to what would be home for the next 2 weeks. When first planning these trips I spent a huge amount of time researching diving Truk. The biggest question was Liveaboard vs. Land based diving. Well, the comments that came back from the liveaboards was not negative, far from it . But the biggest reason for being land based was that we had a beautiful resort, loads of space, airconditioned, spacious rooms with your own fridge and ensuite for each room. We could go into town and get a few beers, stick them in the fridge and sit on the balcony after a hard days diving!!!!!, Blue lagoon resort is really impressive though. The grounds are immaculate, 2 bars on the premises, the friendliest people on the planet, a restaurant that not only boasted a massive menu BUT also would bring out food for 16 in under half an hour! (I think Gordon Ramsey should come over to Blue Lagoon for a little lessionin how to feed the masses!!!!)With a big group of people over for a 2 week period food can really become an issue. On our trip NOONE got crook. food was amazing, consistant, hot and served with a smile every time!

When everyone had a bit of a liedown they got all their gear sorted, analysed their gas, got sorted for day 1 of diving!

Day 1 of diving and everyone mustered to their respective boats. Three boats, 3 different wrecks. The next 12 days would see an average of 5 hours of diving a day per person. Below are some of the memories I have of this trip and the diving I was doing. I will post trip reports of the guys if they get a chance to post them.

For me Truk is the ultimate of wreck diving destinations. There is nowhere on the planet where there is so many top quality wrecks in such a short area, in such great conditions, in such shallow water. 60% of all wrecks are in 35m or shallower! Hows that!!!!

For me the most memorable dives of the trip are as follows.

First and foremost I love exploration and one of the things that I have grown to realise that Truk is SO unexplored! Probably the biggest shock to me was the fact that practically every diver aspires to get to truk one day in their diving carreer, but you know the largest percentage of diver that visits truk is relatively inexperienced!!!! That means that about 30% of the wrecks get dived 90% of the time!!! Which means that even the known wrecks dont get dived that often let alone the lesser known wrecks!!!! Also common practice is what commonly happens is that you get taken deep, swim you 600 foot to the stern of the vessel, huffing and puffing you glug through your gas and before you know it you have done a 35minute dive on the wreck!!!!! Yip!!!! - Cool - What next???? You can boast 5 dives a day but that sort of "tea bagging" is really hard on the body and very few people actually can keep up with that sort of exertion. we just focused on 2 dives a day. You plan your own bottom time - if you want to do a 3 hour bottom time - then we plan for it!!!

One of the trips main objectives was to spend some time on the deeper, lesser dived wrecks. And that we did. One of the wrecks that is closest to the heart is the Oite Destroyer. Reading Dan Baileys book really helped me get some sort of grasp of what the hell was going on during Operation Hailstone. Below is some pictures of the Oite, sitting at the northern most point of Truk the viz was to dive for.

This is an image I stitched together of the entire wreckage. I sat on the sand inbetween both pieces of wreckage and panoramically took pictures of the remains. I was gobsmacked! What beauty. Being blown in two pieces by an arial torpedo this wreck saw massive loss of life and this is still evident. On exploration of the bow section human remains were prevalent throughout the holds accessable to divers. The utmost respect and due dilligence was shown by all divers visiting these watery graves. Wrecks round the world with fewer loss of life have been closed off to divers as war graves but in actual fact every vessel that has lost one sole is, in essence, a war grave. It is a privelage and an honour to bear witness, up close, the results of the ravages of war.

Bow section of the Oite Destroyer

Another wreck that made a massive impression on us was the San Fransisco Maru. Sitting in 58m of water this wreck gets dived by people often but again these tend to be short bottom times with little time to really see the wreck for its merrits. On average we would spend an hour bottom time on wrecks like this. So this would really give us time to have a good look at the wreck. Known as the Million Dollar wreck this wreck really is a must do dive with almost 100% of people saying they want another dive on her! The permenant shot sits about 15m off the port bow. She sits upright and IMPRESSIVE!!!!!

Above this is the image I saw on my descent onto the wreck from the shot line. Shown is Skip and Des already on the decks of the wreck. What a wreck!!

In hold 2 some nice little gems waiting to be photographed. Here shown is two petrol bowsers.

Oh yeah, if you got bored in the holds there were not 1 but 3 tanks on the deck!!! Here on the port deck one of the three tanks are shown. !

Another wreck that I had not dived before was the Shotan Maru. one of the deeper wrecks in the lagoon. This was a really picturesque wreck. Very colourful and also great for the wreck photographer.

Next wreck was the Kensho maru. Absolutly spectacular engine room. Awesome!!! Just click on each image to take you to all the images of each wreck. I had a lot of fun taking pictures on this wreck.

Another of teh deeper wrecks - the Nagano was next on the list. Another fantastic wreck - (again I go on about how fantastic these wrecks are - and they TRULY are!)

The nagano is really famed for its flat bed trucks but this dive I focused on other areas of the wreck to give Simon some time to picture the wreck. One of the stand out points for me this dive was being able to take pictures of the lamp locker on the port side of the superstructure. Great dive!!!

It was good to get back onto the Nippo also. This dive I focused on the stern section as I had not been to it before on previous trips. It was wedged hard up against the sloping bottom. Props were completely covered.

The Shinkoko maru has to be one of the best reef wreck dives on the planet. It is astounding. Here is a shot of a grinder in the engineroom workshop.

But the shinkoko is known mostly for its amazing aquatic life. Click on the plant shot below to take you to our dedicated page for plant lovers!!!