After a three and a half day delay in getting to Chuuk Republic, Federated States of Micronesia, I arrived at 4:20 AM local time. Great way to start a job, showing up almost four days late and getting your new boss up in the middle of the night to skiff across the lagoon and wait for an hour and a half to pick you up at the airport. He was surprisingly understanding, and seems to be a thoroughly pleasant man who has carved himself the life he wants by learning how to do things and then doing them, whether running a dive business in the middle of nowhere, building a house, or sailing the seven seas. I feel like I have landed in the proper place to soak up a lot of knowledge.
I had my first look at my new home as the sun came up over the lagoon. The Odyssey is a three-decked steel hulled vessel of 132’ and 362 gross tons. She’s a good-looking boat. Take a look if you want at www.trukodyssey.com.
By the time I got my gear stowed it was time to move the boat through a pass between two islands, a trip fraught with shallow reefs requiring zagging course changes. We arrived at our first dive destination of the day; I set up my gear and took my first dive in Truk Lagoon. Next thing I know I’m following one of the locals into the exploded bow of a 300+ foot Japanese vessel, trailing him through rusty corridors down rusty stairwells into a rusty engine room, through holds loaded with unexpended ordnance, past bathrooms with tile that is in better shape than the stuff in my old apartment in Venice Beach, and out a jagged torpedo hole near the stern that puts us in 140’ of water right next to the massive prop. A reef shark rises from underneath the boat and swims up to check me out; he seems to grin as he glides within feet of me. I swear I heard him say, “Welcome to Truk Lagoon.”
Next dive we move outside the lagoon through a narrow pass and moor up next to a shallow coral wall. Sharks begin to circle behind the boat before the engines are even dead. Some of the crew toss some scraps and the sharks go nuts. They dissipate after a bit and we suit up and jump in. They follow us like puppies to the preordained feeding area, and a couple of the crew set up a sling system that drops a frozen tuna into our midst. Seven hours in Micronesia and I’m in the midst of a feeding frenzy watching forty sharks vie for the tuna popsicle prize. I think I’m going to like it here.
Third dive of the day on the Rio de Janeiro Maru, a turn of the century luxury liner steamship pressed into service at the outset of the war and converted into a transport ship. The guide I follow traces a passage through the boat that takes in the forward holds, the superstructure, the engine room, the stern holds, and the poop deck, all without swimming outside the boat. In other words, for twenty something minutes at depths of 80’-120’, the only light I saw was projecting from my flashlight or filtering from a distant opening. Epic, until you consider that I will soon be counted upon to know these routes and be able to guide them myself. Lots of floor plans floating through my head; many wrecks, similar layouts, and one rusty corridor starts to look a lot like all the others.
I’m working on getting a handle on how to describe diving in the wrecks, what it feels like to shine a light into a yawning black hole and then make the decision to pass from daylight and open ocean into an overhead environment that is a sunken graveyard, a historical monument, a potential deathtrap. Amongst the layers of silt and debris, I come upon sixty year old scenes that look like someone might have just left, stepped outside and left the kettle on the stove, hung their welding goggles up on the machine shop drill press. Eerie.
The camera hasn’t been out yet, but I will get to that soon. We leave for drydock in the Philippines on Monday, at which point I will probably have more reliable internet access and be able to post further. Thanks for reading and I hope you are well. Check back at your convenience.
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