Today was another deep dive. We dove the Shotan Maru, which was a medium freighter. The Shotan Maru is one of the few ships not sunk during the Hailstone attack. It is speculated that the crew were trying to beach her when she sank. However, she was later hit by an aircraft in the aft hold. She weighs 1,999 tons, 286ft in length, and has a max speed of 10kts. She starts at around 120ft and went down to 170ft.
We descended down to the stern gun located at 150ft. It was smaller than the gun on the San Francisco but still very impressive. We then made our way through the bridge and down into the cargo hold. We came across three military trucks. One of the trucks was still in very good condition; the others had been damaged severely. Scattered around the trucks were large anti-aircraft artillery shells. Most were stacked together in a set of 4. The main deck had crane trucks, one had fell off the ship and landed on the bottom of the ocean floor. We swam down to about 165ft and explored the fallen crane truck. Due to the depth, it was another short dive. I spent about 20 minutes doing decompression to “off-gas”. Each dive I do, I get more and more comfortable which feels great. Especially going to such extreme depths and doing decompression diving.
After a little nap and some lunch we headed out at 2pm for our second dive. We did a last minute change and decided to dive the Hoki Maru. The Hoki Maru was originally built for New Zealand but when hostilities began on Decembere 7th, 1941 the ship was captured by Japan. The crew was interned in the Ofuna Work Camp until their liberation in 1945. She later headed towards Chuuk with a cargo of caterpillar tractors, stacked bed trucks, tow tractors, dump trucks, steam rollers and other construction vehicles. Other equipment consisted of aircraft engines and propellers, ship propellers, bombs and their fuses. The Hoki Maru is 450ft in length, what is really cool about this wreck is that the bow of the ship is completely split open from the explosion. In fact the cargo hold openings still stand where they were but are only supported by the framing. We descended down and explored the cargo hold with all the trucks and construction equipment. Later we swam through a narrow spot where the ship had collapsed in on its self and came across thousand of empty sake bottles. The Japanese sure could drink! On the way back up to the surface we spotted at least 3 sharks! I was so excited as I watched them circle all the fish. They were about 30ft away and 4.5ft in length. It was really cool to see how smooth they move through the water and happy I got to check this off my list.
On the ride back we made a little pit stop to Eten Island. It was one of the most memorable parts of my trip so far. Turns out that the crew on the Thorfinn ran out of cigarettes. Their version of a convenience store was a little tin shack on the side of the island over looking the water. As we pulled up, the children ran out of the near by school to greet us by the dock. It was really nice to see the kids smiling despite how remote Chuuk is and knowing how little they have. Surprisingly they had Facebook and were making jokes saying they were Stephen Curry. The ride back really set in how remote Chuuk is. I don’t think there is any other place on earth quite like it. I’m really going to miss it here.
Our third dive was supposed to be a tugboat but we all agreed that it would be boring so we returned to the Fujikawa Maru. I really loved this wreck the first time around so I was happy to get back to it. I went off exploring on my own and swam around the deck. I eventually came across the cargo hold with the planes and spent some time playing around in there. I swam through the tiled bathrooms and it was really relaxing, it made me realize how much my diving had improved since the first day of the trip. I had a really cool experience being swarmed by school of batfish. I sat in the middle of their path and they all swam around me.
After dinner, we headed out for my second night dive of the trip. We returned to one of my favourites, the Heian Maru. We did another penetration dive and it really reinforced how much my diving had improved. This time around I was really happy, as I felt comfortable enough to video the experience. On the way in we saw two giant puffer fish. We swam through the collapsed ship and came across a skull and plenty of pipes with gauges. I saw a few light bulbs, which was really neat and eventually came across the torpedos again. I really enjoyed this dive and felt way more comfortable in the confided spaces.
I can’t wait for more diving but in the mean time, sleep is very much needed!
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Justin Steele
The Green Ranger