Hello Tokyo Rose!

Poorly edited sunset photo over Truk Lagoon

Micronesia is small… how small? I’m glad you asked, it’s so small that while they have a bank machine, it hasn’t worked in years and it’s entirely possible to have the same bank note cross your palm several times in the course of one visit. Which is a very good reason to take out US dollars from the ATM when transiting through Guam. You’ll know the machine dispenses greenback because the moment you land you’ll to be hassled and harassed as only the TSA can.

I’ll spare you all the diatribe but I swear, it’s as if you’re personally responsible for the fact they’ve pissed half the world off. You know the old line, “It’s not you, it’s me…” In this case it was definitely you!

But I digress….

It takes thirty hours to get fromNew Zealand to Truk Micronesia which is kind of silly when you look at it on a globe. Realistically you should be able to throw a bowl of half-chilled raspberry jello off the north shore and 9 times out of ten hit Truk. I’m exaggerating of course but getting up at 4 am to fly to Cairns, Australia to wait for 16 hours then fly to Guam then wait another six then off to Truk just doesn’t seem like the most direct route possible.

On the plus side, I got an exit row all to myself. The kind with no seat in front of me. On the downside, that seat is cold enough to freeze the balls off a brass monkey. What’d they do? take all the insulation out of the emergency exit door? Oh yeah… that’s exactly what they did!

I’ve also managed to buy a set of boardshorts and pants in Cairns but that creates another problem, space. I’m fairly over my weight limit by now. The backpack is now packed in a larger (slightly over the limit) soft bag I purchased in Sydneyand the daypack gets placed in a larger North Face bag when I actually board the plane. Auckland security weighed the new carry on and it blew merrily past the weight and size limit with nary a look back. I managed to talk my way through but there are a few more hops before I’m done so things could yet get messy… I may have to break down and be nice to a TSA screener… Oh the horror.

We eventually get to Truk but not before the mandatory moment of panic. Gotta have one on each hop y’know! This time it happens when the airline announces there’s no more room in the overhead bins and forces everyone still in line to check their carry on. Blissfully ignorant, I agree. The panic occurs at the Truk end when camera, computer, image backups and everything else in the black bag fails to emerge on the conveyor until the absolute last bag is offloaded, long after UA 172 has departed for the next island in the chain. In the process I learn why the cabin has been deemed full. Load after load of igloo coolers come out of the overheads, apparently full of frozen meat which is incredibly expensive on the tiny island. The spectacle continues at the baggage carousel but regrettably I don’t have a camera to capture it with! When my carryon does finally appear I feel relief as though I’ve just lost my wallet and found it again which is humorous because in fact I have…

Day 1, Dive 1

The day starts with a dive to 130 feet on the Shinkoku Maru. The ship is upright and littered with artifacts… old radio sets, crockery with the makers stamp still visible and oh yeah… human remains in the form of bones lie on the infirmary room operating table. Outside Wil, our Dive Master picks up a human jawbone and displays it to the group.

Human jawbone aboard the Shinkoku Maru

Inside the Betty Bomber

Dive 2: Betty Bomber aka Mitsubishi G4M. This uber-cool WWII Japanese bomber has had it’s nose torn off by the impact making it possible to swim into the fuselage through the nose and out through the aft doors or up through the gunners turret. Beside the plane sit artifacts which have been removed for easier perusal, the radio, a machine gun, bottles and the planes toilet. Probably because it’s made mostly from aircraft aluminum the bomber is relatively free from corrosion and coral. It’s possible to run your fingers along the outer skin and feel the subtle indentation the rivets make. This is probably the coolest wreck I’ve ever been to and it’s not hurt by the pair of damaged Mitsubishi Zeros lying on the ocean floor nearby.

Map of Betty Bomber on the bottom in Truk Lagoon

Reef shark in Truk

Dive 3 Shark Island

Nothing screams “Cool” like a shark dive and when the place you’re going is called Shark Island you know you’re gonna see some cool shit. The island itself is only a scant 50 feet in diameter so it’s the classic comic book version of a deserted island. We anchor just a few feet offshore in perhaps twenty feet of water. Descending to a depth of sixty feet we sit on the sandy bottom for thirty minutes and watch grey and white tipped reef sharks cruise by inquisitively. I snap a hundred photos, most of which are dim grey blurs against a blue background. Wish I had one of those ten thousand dollar underwater cases with me but it’d be a real pain to haul all that weight for three months only to use it in the last week. And good luck renting such a thing here… Chuk is pretty much third world in the middle of nowhere so if you didn’t bring it the odds are it ain’t here!

At the end of the dive I’m taking pictures from the boat with my hands and camera in the water when the divemaster starts throwing chum (fish parts) into the sea. In seconds we have scads of sharks all around the boat and a mini feeding frenzy starts up. It’s a bit of a shock when you’ve got two hands in the ocean and three sharks suddenly appear inches away but it’s not me they’re after and I’ve got my hands outta there before you can say “chicken fingers”. All five divers ohh and ahh as they snap photo after photo.

All in all I think I’ve seen more stuff on this first day of diving in Truk than most of my previous dive experience combined. Maybe that’s just cause I’m a fan of wrecks and sharks but I’d bet anyone into diving would have a hard time complaining.

Tokyo Rose, Signing off!

PS: I was wrong about internet access… it’s slow as molasses but it’s available!!