Our enthusiastic crew and boat buddies were at the dive dock and ready to go by 8:30. We were all eager to get underway. Of course, we had no idea where we were going. Not only were briefings non-existent, but it was only revealed to us where we were when we were there!
Photos:
1) Jerry and Awora ready to go
2) A view of the boat fleet
3) We are on our way
4) Another overcast day that turned out to be beautiful and partly sunny
Our first dive was on the NIPPO MARU. It is a 351', 3,754-ton Passenger Cargo Ship resting upright with a slight list to port in 150' of water. She was a wartime Auxiliary Water Carrier.
We entered the water at 9:24 am with a total dive time of 29 minutes, reaching a maximum depth of 111'. The deeper we dive the less time we are allowed to spend under water.
The order of the photos of the NIPPO MARU:
1) The exterior of the bridge, our first sighting as we descended to about 75'.
2) The interior of the bridge
3) The fabulously preserved Japanese battle tank
4) Jerry swimming over truck remnants hanging overboard on the port side. There was another truck in the sand next to the ship but it was too deep to reach.
5) Gas masks and 50 caliber shells laying on a cross beam.
6) A photo of me hanging on to the bow rail.
Between dives surface intervals are required so rather than sit on our boat and wait the hour plus, we were taken to a very small island that we dubbed the Truk Starbucks. Mark, one of our dive buddies jokingly asked if they had coffee. Keep in mind that these are really nothing other than a place to be out of the weather (sun or rain) with not much more than a rudimentary outhouse and a picnic table. Our draws dropped when one of the staff members responded to the coffee request by bringing out a pitcher of hot water, 5 cups and a jar of instant coffee. He even had powdered creamer.
The photos of our island stop are:
1) Getting off the boat
2) Being served coffee
3) Some of the buildings used by the workers who are on the island only during the day to help divers.
4) The only crab in the crab race.
When our rest time was up, we headed out for our second dive which is covered in the next blog post.
No comments:
Post a Comment