A Wreck Diving Adventure
I retired early to take on new challenges, learn new things, find adventure, and frankly, just because I could. Wreck diving however will remain a strictly vicarious adventure for me! In our family, wreck diving in Micronesia is the exclusive domain of my younger brother Mike.
I’m writing today’s blog about Micronesia. It’s a mecca for those who have “a lust for rust.” Professional and recreational divers alike consider it one of the world’s best sites for this highly technical form of diving. A bit of context first. My brother’s dive excursions have taken him to some of the most exotic places on earth. He dives amongst rare and long-forgotten man-made objects. And if you’re into
This time, after he came back home from several months of swimming around Oceania, I was finally able to talk him into letting me write about his most recent trip. He’d retired early so he could enjoy these kinds of physically demanding adventures. His stories and the pictures were amazing. Totally worth sharing. So let us begin!
Where is Micronesia?
Oceania is a region full of thousand of islands in the Central and South Pacific Oceans. This is a real place, not that crazy made-up place in Kevin Costner’s Water World. Micronesia is a sub-region within it. The Federated States of Micronesia is north of Australia and composed of about 600 islands. They’re the tops of long-extinct volcanoes that form a ring. The most familiar are Yap, Chuuk (often pronounced Truk), and Pohnpei. The Bikini Atoll is part of the Marshall Islands and is next door, just east of Micronesia.
World War Two put this strategic paradise on the map. And then World War Two just about blew it off the map with ordnance and atomic bomb testing. Chuuk Lagoon was the Japanese Empire’s main naval base, and the majority of their Naval Fleet -aircraft carriers, destroyers, planes, and fuel supply ships, were anchored there. It was their equivalent to American Naval Base at Pearl Harbor in Hawaii.
Bikini Atoll was used by the US to test the effectiveness of atomic bombs (as if Hiroshima and Nagasaki weren’t enough). In all, 23 atomic weapons were tested here between 1946 and 1958.
About the Wrecks
So when the US sunk all of Japan’s battleships in retaliation for Hirohito’s attack on Pearl Harbor, this is where it happened. It was called Operation Hailstone. During two full days of bombardment by the US Fleet in February of 1944 the Japanese fleet was decimated. According to the history books, the Japanese lost two light cruisers, four destroyers, six auxiliary vessels (aircraft ferries, submarine tenders), thirty-two merchant ships, and over 250 aircraft.
The US suffered losses as well, but nothing compared to its opposition. Twenty-five planes were lost and two ships were damaged. Over those two days, 4500 Japanese and 40 US combatants lost their lives. And all those people, ships, and planes were sent to the bottom of the pristine Chuuk Lagoon, creating a massive underwater museum and tomb.
The Bikini Atoll was the site of the testing for several atomic bombs. The US Navy called it Operation Crossroads. In 1946 the navy took numerous decommissioned vessels and placed them inside the cresent-shaped coral reef. Then dropped “the bomb” (technically they dropped both letters of the alphabet here H-bombs and A-bombs). They sunk battleships, submarines, aircraft carriers (with planes), and destroyers.
I’m told that these two locations hold the highest concentration of sunken WWII-era ships and planes than anywhere else on earth. They can be found at depths from 50 to 250 feet. In January of 2009, UNESCO named this a World Heritage Site. The depth of the wrecks, their remote ocean location, the pristine waters, and the degree to which they remain intact are more than enough reasons for experienced divers to come here.
(Slightly off–topic FYI. While wreck diving in Micronesia might be nirvana for WWII buffs. Those who appreciate WWI wrecks head to Scapa Flow in Scotland, off the coast of the Orkney Islands to see sunken history.)
So What is a Wreck Diver?
What’s the difference between a wreck diver and a SCUBA diver? Well, it’s like that old saying, “all thumbs are fingers, but not all fingers are thumbs.” In the case of my brother, he would say, “I like to experience history for myself, up close and personal, in the most challenging way possible.”
My brother has never been an “oh, look at the pretty fish” kind of guy. Nor is he the, “freakin’ awesome, it’s Shark Week, let’s cage dive in a feeding frenzy” kind of guy. Wreck diving isn’t about “Finding Nemo.” Diving this way takes years of patience, practice, and investment. Diving amongst wrecks can be very dangerous due to their depth and condition.
(Another slightly off-topic FYI. This form of diving is gaining in popularity. Decommissioned ships are now frequently being sunk for the sole purpose of recreational wreck diving.)
He’ll also say that this type of diving is very technical. Wreck diving is alternately called “technical diving”. The equipment you need, how it’s used, and all the safety precautions. It takes time to learn dive computers, gas mixtures, and navigation. This isn’t for someone with just a four-hour lesson at a tropical resort.
Back in the early 90s, he saw an article in National Geographic Magazine about the shipwrecks in Micronesia. It outlined all the challenges it took to be able to be down there amongst the wrecks. And he says, “I just knew I wanted to do it. So I set a personal goal for myself years ago to acquire the skills (and resources) to do it.”
Three Types of Wreck Diving
Not all wrecks are created equal. For example, there are the ones that are safe and stable. More and more, these are man-made for recreational divers. Others are historic and you’re simply not allowed on them. Some are large and cavernous, others a tangled mess. Consider the rust factor. These wrecks have been down there rusting for decades. The simple motion of swimming with fins can cause enough turbulence to stir up large, disorienting amounts of rust, making visibility nearly impossible.
Non-Penetrating Wreck Diving
Great for beginners, this type of technical diving means that you can swim all around or over the wreck, but you never go in it. It’s great for unstable structures. YOu can look in doors, hatches, and portholes. You just can’t go in.
Limited Penetration Wreck Diving
Divers are permitted into certain portions or areas of wrecks. Usually, these areas have been thoroughly checked for hazards (environmental or entanglement); there are no concealed spaces, and natural light almost always exists.
Full-Penetration Wreck Diving
Obviously, this requires all the technical skills you got. It’s only for the most advanced, and not for the faint of heart. Divers enter concealed rooms, holds, and compartments. It’s often done at extreme depths, there is no ambient light, it’s safety and equipment intensive, and experience is a must. Diver most commonly used mixed gas rebreathers down here, not SCUBA tanks.
As a retired fire chief, I can tell you that the hazards of technical diving are very much like firefighting. Both are considered IDHL – immediately dangerous to life and health. Both require you to bring your own air. Lots of working in low or zero visibility. And both have biological, environmental, and entrapment/entanglement risks. The skills necessary for both are remarkably similar. (I’ll go in a burning building, I will never be doing this kind of wreck diving!)
Equipment, Planning, Logistics
Dive trips like this take a lot of planning and logistics. My brother and many other divers thoroughly enjoy this part of technical diving. It also takes years of mentoring and experience to work up to this type of wreck diving. It’s dangerous.
Trips like this are expensive partly because they’re so difficult to get to. And partly because they’re rare. In technical diving, like any niche, there is a network of like-minded people. Over time, and with increasing experience, you slowly get to know other divers and you talk about trips and the best excursions.
When my brother and others started doing this, you couldn’t just Google “how do I dive WWII shipwrecks”. Now you can; thirty years ago, you had to do the leg work! Wreck diving has its own community. Those “like-minded people” connect you to others. When he started planning he went through Pete Mesley’s Lust for Rust Excursions and Truk Masters. This gets you on a dive boat, get to Bikini Atoll yourself.
Bikini Atoll
The Bikini Atoll trip in the Marshall Islands took him almost 36 hours. He flew from Toronto to Vancouver, then to Honolulu (where he stayed a couple of days, went to Pearl Harbor, saw WW ll from both sides so to speak), and then flew to Kwajalein.
Kwajalein is an American missile base, so security is tight. Then you take a quick 15-minute ferry ride to the next island over, Ebeye, where you catch the boat to Bikini Atoll. And that boat ride is about 18 hours…then boom, you go wreck dining. Once you’re there, you stay out on the dive boat for the entire time, not the atoll itself. He’s been diving twice in Bikini.
Chuuk Lagoon
The trip to Chuuk Lagoon looks like this: Toronto, Washington DC, Tokyo, Guam, Chuuk; a whopping 35 hours. You can sleep on the plane from Washington to Tokyo. My brother strongly recommends taking trips business class and not economy. You’ll want the extra leg room. And since wreck diving requires a ton of gear, you’ll appreciate the baggage allotment that comes with business class.
All of these small islands or islets are only accessible to tourists via airplane no ferry on this trip. That might not seem like a big deal. But the last leg of the trip to Chuuk Lagoon is not for the faint of heart.
Why? Well, Chuuk (or Truk as some say) is a very narrow island. Narrow can’t be understated. The land where the airport is literally no wider than the landing strip.
If you’re planning a dive trip here, consider staying at any of the three-star resorts. It’s more economical. You spend a week or more living out on the diving boats; so a hotel is just a place to store stuff. Why pay for high-end resort amenities (poolside bars, nightly entertainment)? You’ll be too tired after combing wrecks all day.
And if you get a view like this at a three-star, who needs more?
Wreck Diving Safety
The logistics of getting there with All diving requires safety precautions, but this kind of diving requires even more built-in redundancies; we use the rule of threes. Even for items that seem “basic”, technical divers carry triple what’s needed. Three flashlights as an example. (FYI, “basic” doesn’t mean simple or inexpensive; more like elemental.) My brother uses a rebreather tank (closed circuit respirator – CCR), instead of the traditional SCUBA tank (open circuit respirator – OCR), because he feels it’s safer for technical diving.
“Again, it’s all about redundancies. You must understand the complex gas mixtures that you’re breathing. I take multiple tanks, manifolds, and regulators. This device alone is a serious investment, and I’m not talking about just money.”
Rebreathers have extra safety advantages that make them preferable for full-penetration wreck diving
- Reduced oxygen consumption. Traditional SCUBA tanks (open circuit tanks) cause the need for increased O2 consumption the deeper you go. Rebreathers only consume the oxygen needed for the diver’s physical needs, regardless of depth. In a closed system like rebreathers, unused gas is recirculated.
- (topic adjacent FYI. the rebreather was invented by Jacques Cousteau in 1944)
- Air from a rebreather is warm and moist. This helps reduce the potential for hypothermia and dehydration and reduces the risk of decompression sickness.
- Since the rebreather is using the best mix of gas at every depth, it reduces decompression time while ascending. It does this by reducing the amount of excess nitrogen in your blood, helping prevent the bends. Divers can stay down deeper and longer safely.
- There are no exhaled bubbles from a rebreather. Bubbles will start a cascade of falling rust.
- It’s called “red water” and it reduces visibility, which in turn can cause disorientation, separation from your partner, and entanglement.
Man-Made Objects
Wreck diving is all about experiencing history for many of these adventurers. Not just hopes of sunken treasure. And in truth, no one is allowed to remove anything from these ships. Not a cup, a hinge, or a piece of brass.
my brother explains it like this
It’s real. Reefs grow naturally, and the fish show up, but the objects have a story behind them. There are ships here that were sunk by atomic bombs. You can’t gloss over that kind of tragedy. Chuuk Lagoon was the site of a major battle in World War ll. It helped change the course of that war.
The Japanese Imperial Navy had all their supply ships, and some of their warships, there. Some 90% of those ships are on the bottom of the lagoon. Royal merchant cargo vessels with tanks, trucks, bombs, airplane parts, all that kind of stuff. At Bikini Lagoon, there are three warships, a carrier, and a battleship; all sunk for atom bomb testing. Incidentally, that’s why you live out on the ocean on the boat for those trips…no one wants a mildly radio-reactive motel.
Wreck diving in Micronesia is physically, financially, and logistically challenging. It’s that way for all forms of technical diving. But it’s worth it to see things that fewer and fewer people on the planet will ever get to see. History at the bottom of the ocean; that’s all part of the appeal. You know that you’re one of the very few human beings to explore what’s down there and around the next corner. It’s not a vacation, it’s an expedition! That doesn’t appeal to everyone, and even when it does, it takes time, commitment, and the resources to work up to it.
If wreck diving is on your retirement bucket list, start planning both early! The world’s oceans await you. And Micronesia is just a short 35-hour trek away!
Cheers,
Cynthia
Off-topic FYI, but I’d like to think that it’s still topic adjacent, Here are two other posts I’ve written that may interest you.
- If wreck diving or diving, in general, is of interest to you. Check my interview vlog with Canada’s Explorer in Residence – Jill Heinerth.
- If the concept of retiring early so that you’re fit for a big, arduous adventure makes total sense to you. Then read all about my friend Dave “Dinger” Bell. He retired early from the British Royal Navy so that he could solo across the North Atlantic. New York to the UK – row, row, row your boat.
Cynthia Ross Tustin retired early to pursue her passion for writing. Turns out, she's equally passionate about retirement! This author has spent 1000s of hours researching all the best that retirement has to offer. What you'll find here is a well-curated resource of amazing places to go and fun things to do as your retirement approaches. Not retired, no problem! There's plenty here for all of us that are "of a certain vintage"!