What a draw: history, marine and aviation "iron," color, animal life, warm water and tropical sun! To understand what is in Chuuk and why, we need to start with a bit of background: History, Geography and "Operation Hailstone". Lots of current and historical media coverage has been given to Truk. Our goal here is to provide an armchair tour of it as we experienced it in April, 1998.

A note on ship names. Maru was used for commercial ships (freighters and passenger vessels). Maru refers to a round trip, as the commercial vessels were expected to make. The Marus, thus, have such non Japanese names as San Francisco Maru, as well as more traditional names as Sankisan Maru. Military vessels did not have theMaru designation.

We arrived Sunday evening after about 2 hours in a Boeing 727 from Guam carrying cameras, underwater housings and dive gear for a week on the live-aboard dive boat Truk Aggressor II. For those of you who aren't up to speed, a live-aboard is a combination resort hotel and dive boat. We landed at the airport in Weno on Moen Island (capital of Chuuk State). The Truk Aggressor II crew met the plane, loaded us and our gear onto their air conditioned van and within minutes we were on board, settling into our cabin.

On Monday morning, we got to meet those who had arrived earlier on Sunday and had been asleep when we boarded. We learned that there were 10 (out of a possible 16) divers on board for the week, so it would be slow and easy. As it turned out, two of the ten were "tech" divers, using dual 80 cf cylinders and diving deep and long, so they were not even a factor on most dives. When we went with a guide, there were two to four divers - just enough to make good photographic subjects and find the little critters! Most of this narrative relates to the structure of the wrecks, the photos show the abounding life!

Continue the Truk Lagoon tour