Eight Days in Chuuk - Day Six

Today was going to be a two tank dive from the tender in the morning, so after breakfast, we packed a dry bag with sunscreen and hats and headed off a little further than usual for the first dive…

Dive 17 – Fumitsuki Destroyer – 1,913 ton Mutsuki Class destroyer. This is one of only a few Japanese Naval ships in the lagoon and quite small so no wreck penetration, but it was so covered in life it was a really enjoyable dive, making our way along the decks. I spotted a shark in the blue. Artifacts on the deck included pages from a book. Ended up with longer deco on the Suunto Mosquito than the others so we were last out of the water.

What a lovely pair!

Between dives we headed to Udot Island where the tender tied up for about ½ hour. This is Tomo’s home island and we met his brother when we took a short walk to a rather grand house, which had been built by some politician by the jetty. Tomo’s brother is caretaker. Tomo climbed a tree and cut down coconuts for us to drink the milk – a very refreshing between dive beverage. And we took lots of pictures of the children who came down to the boat to meet us all. Then we headed back out to the lagoon for…

Dive 18 – Shinkoku Maru – 10,020 ton 500 ft long naval tanker. This had great marine life on it. It’s out in a more exposed area of the lagoon where there was more current so the decks are covered with coral and schools of fish were hanging out around the ship. Tomo took us inside to see the infirmary in the bridge area, but there were many other holes to poke a nose into and look around.

Again a long ride in the tender back to Thorfinn for late lunch. The Chances where leaving the next day so had finished diving for the day, so Nick and I suggested, we would be happy to just do one more for the day and made it a bit later start in the afternoon. So had time to relax before setting out at 3:30pm for the third dive of the day…

Dive 19 – Fujikawa Maru – the fantastic cargo ship which Nick missed diving earlier in the week. Did the same route through the wreck – still looked like a maze but Tomo guided us fantastically around the engine room and tool shop – spotted different thing in there this time. The storeroom was full of electric fans, and all the electric cabling for the lights around the ship was hung about. Another great dive. (Done the dive twice so brought the T-shirt!)



Changed for dinner and then chatting with Colin and Caitlin in the evening and got quite late before going to bed (10pm!)