Truk, 1999
Author: Marc

Hi, all.

As you already know (if you read my post about it) I had the good fortune to visit Truk recently, and one of my companions had the misfortune of developing a case of DCS while diving the wreck of the Fumitsuki. This is a full report on the Truk adventure.

On the way from Palau to Truk, I had to layover for four hours in Guam. This gave me an opportunity to price-shop every darn item at the airport. I became convinced that spending $900 on a bottle of Cognac would not be a good idea, so I purchased some Chopin vodka for $30, which is only slightly more than I'd have paid for it in a supermarket in California. So much for "duty free."

With my bottle in my backpack, I was dismayed at the luggage handling "system" in the Chuuk airport. It reminded me of the baggage tumbling off the top of a three peso bus in Mexico, except that the Mexican bus had live chickens, while these chickens were frozen. The natives in Chuuk apparently take ice chests full of frozen beef & chicken through the airlines every time they return from off-island, and the baggage handlers of course put their relatives' ice chests on top of tourists' bags of dive gear.

When I finally made it through customs, I was picked up by the Thorfinn van, and whisked off to the "ship" via aluminum skiff. I arrived, with seven other divers, at about 11:30 p.m.

The Thorfinn is a large boat, which advertises itself as the largest liveaboard dive boat in the world. It is a converted whaling vessel, originally built for northern seas. As such, it is extraordinarily stable inside of Truk lagoon. However, after my week on the Palau Aggressor, I was disappointed with the Thorfinn, which is an older vessel that does not have the newer, luxury touches of state-of-the-art custom built dive boats. Cabins were smaller, and showers were cramped. The operation is also not as flawless and professional as on the Palau Aggressor. I do not know whether the Truk Aggressor is as nice as the Palau boat, but I would speculate that it is probably nicer than the Thorfinn. (The problem with the Truk Agressor is that it ties directly to the moorings on the wrecks, and can damage them. The Thorfinn stays off the wrecks, and only its tiny skiffs tie up to the wrecks. This also means you have to ride between five and twenty minutes each way in a skiff, for each dive.) The fourteen passengers (from a maximum of sixteen) were divided into three different skiffs, with each skiff visiting different wrecks each day. Our skiff had six divers.

The wreck diving is Truk is simply awesome. Visibility is not as good as in the caribbean, Fiji or Palau, but the place has an aura that makes it mysterious and fascinating. The wrecks are completely different than anything I've seen anywhere else. Most other wrecks are boring, such as the hulks in Cayman, Bonaire, so on. Even the Yongala off Australia and the Chaudierre in Canada did not come close to any of the incredible sites in Truk.

The difference in Truk is the haunting aura. Each ship graphically portrays its history in a way that makes a diver understand that men died in those ships, with American planes shooting tracers, Japanese machine guns shooting back, bombs exploding and torpedoes flying. The wrecks have fully armed weapons, human remains, bullets, china, bottles, and so on. Divers are allowed to penetrate the ships, handle the bullets and weapons, swim through the Japanese airplanes, and play "driver" in the Japanese tanks. The wrecks are thickly encrusted with soft and hard corals, and although the fish life is certainly more plentiful in some other locations, there is still a lot of coral, some lionfish, many tunas, and I saw a school of barracudas.

As usual, the famous sites were no better than the non-famous. After a while, I lost track of the names, and everything sounded like the "Maru this" and the "Maru that." However, I became convinced that the place is haunted, or at least there is some real negative energy in that location. I do not believe in such crazy stuff, but in addition to the DCS hit, little things would go wrong. Moreover, the human remains in the wrecks were treated disrepectfully. To have a divemaster holding up a human skull is not treating the dead Japanese sailor with respect, and is not right.

Anyway, it is time for me to put the kids in bed, so I'll end this report. My final words: Visibility: 50'-90', usually about 70'. Water temperatures: 83-84. Diving: awesome, haunting and unforgettable. Absolutely world class.

If you're interested, I'll post a final report on the practically untouched island of Kosrae, and the diving on its virgin reefs.

Marc