Remnants of war abound on Chuuk
Imposing bow of the Shotan Maru
Everyone had some sort of problem , all sorted to keep divers in the water . The resort also has the Naughty Tank , a large dunk tank into which a misbehaving unit can be lowered to pin point leaks .
The Repair Anchorage is a short boat ride out , the Fleet Anchorages a little further – maybe 30 minutes or so . We had a small boat the first day which was a bit of a struggle , so it was swapped out for a much larger very fancy local boat the next day , and finally we settled on a 10m long covered boat that was ideal for us , with plenty of room . We were all given insulated drinks bottles and there ’ s a big keg of iced water on board , as in the tropics , sitting in a wetsuit , it can be warm work so it ’ s important to keep well hydrated .
Watching the dive guides find the wreck is impressive . They use marks , but the land is a long way off the wreck sites , so they take years to learn where they are . The wrecks are buoyed , but the buoy bobs some 5 – 6m below the surface to stop the local fishermen from hitting them . When the boat gets to the mark , the guides look for the buoy then jump off and feed a rope through from the boat to tie it in while we go diving .
Each dive tends to allow about an hour on the wreck , with the remainder of the run time decompressing . The 35m wrecks had dive times of about 90 minutes , and the deeper wrecks 2 – 2.5 hours . Drop bottles were hung off the boat , oxygen at 6m and 50 % at 21m with a second 50 % bottle on the shot line with the divers using a tag system on the way down and up to collect it .
Then you ’ re in for a spot of lunch ; you leave the kit on the boat ( unless it needed
a dunk in the Naughty Tank to find a leak ) and then you ’ re in for the second dive , in the afternoon . They have a minimum of a 4-hour surface interval as over the years , this has found to cut down the incidents of DCI by more than 80 %. Doing 12 days of 50 - 60m diving with a day ’ s break in the middle is pretty hard on the body . Bob commented that in Scapa , everyone would be in the pot by day 4 !
Logistics
Getting supplies to Truk is a big problem . This is where Pete Mesley from Lust for Rust comes in – he has invested in an oxygen ( well about 94 %) generator for the Blue Lagoon Resort , and ships in the eye-wateringly expensive helium for his customers . The resort banks up big cylinders of ‘ house mix ’ ( about 17 / 40 ) that everyone carries in an 80 cu ft bailout cylinder , plugging in to the loop when a
Controls inside the Kensho Maru ’ s engine room
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