Le Polynesien was a consolation dive for us after some more exciting prospects failed to materialise on the depth sounder. After a few hours of searching we decamped to this well-known WWI wreck. She was a French ocean liner, launched in 1890 and carrying passengers between France and far flung parts of the globe. Prior to her war re-fit as a troopship she had capacity for 582 passengers in four classes. In the last year of WWI she was tracking 7 miles out of Valletta Harbour en route to Greece when she was struck by a U-boat torpedo. She now sits on the bottom in about 65m of water.

Le Polynesien is huge – 152m long – with one massive propellor under her intact stern. She’s generally upright-ish with a list to the port side along most of her length. Her middle section is a mess where the torpedo came through, and you can work through the wreckage for easy access to the layers of decks inside.

We planned for a long bottom time and it was good to explore from one end to the other. I headed inside and down to the stern to check out the view. The single propellor is sitting up out of the sand, showing off some very skinny blades. The ship is large enough that even with good vis it was hard to fit the whole stern in the picture. Capturing the prop was interesting from a photographic perspective as the overhang of the stern was causing huge exposure contrast between the dark shaded areas and the blue waters behind. I had just about got that balanced out when Craig showed up to pose in the first photo above.

Up above the prop on the deck of the stern sits the stern gun, mirrored by the bow gun at the other end of the ship. I moseyed my way back down the deck to find the ship just kept going. The bow is a lot longer and skinnier than the WWII wrecks we had been diving. I swam out into blue water to turn around and get this shot of Dave and Sandy posing and videoing the bow. From them we headed back to the shot and up for a spot of deco. All in all, she’s a great wreck to spend an hour exploring.

The highlight of our trip to Malta was diving the Mark One. I’d like to give you a background on the ship – launch date, history, nationality, circumstances in which she sank – but that’s all unknown. The Mark One is an unidentified shipwreck that was first dived by the Shadow Technical guys in 2015. They have completed four dives on her to date. She sits on the bottom in 120m of water with her deck coming up to 108m. Completely upright, the Mark One is nearly 150m long and has four large open cargo holds.

On the first dive we dropped down the shot to arrive on the stern of the ship. Blue water and great vis showed the wreck stretched out along the seafloor. The wreck has a lot of sponges and soft corals colonising the hull and she’s very intact. We swam from the stern to the bow and back again before heading for the surface via four hours of deco. As I headed back along the port side of the ship I looked down to see a dark patch in the side of the hull. Interesting, but no time to investigate. It wasn’t until the following day that I’d get a chance for a closer look.

On the second dive the shot dropped perfectly on the port side of the wreck. From this vantage point it was easy to see that the port side of the bow had caved in, leaving a large entry hole into the forward hold. You can just see the start of this collapse in the first photo above. Inside the hull were piles of barrels in different sizes, from 44 gallon drums to much smaller specimens. After a quick swim forward and out again, the other guys headed up and over the deck.

Having found myself on the port side and already halfway down the hull, I decided it was time to investigate the dark patch from yesterday. After descending to 118m it was clear that it wasn’t a patch, but a diver-sized hole in the hull. Sitting directly at mid-ships, a peek inside revealed a direct route into the engine room. I squeezed my way over a metal beam at a jaunty angle and moved very gently inside.

It’s obvious that noone has been in here since the ship went down. Piles of silt are sitting undisturbed on the floor. I eased my way through the railings and forward to the staircase to see what could be seen on the level above. With silt all around and a slightly obstructed pathway back to the exit combined with a depth of close to 120m, I wasn’t prepared to go much further. The stairs seemed like a good place to turn around. But then as I swung to the left, something caught my eye.

The bell with clapper still hanging in position looked very much like it was ready for service. With the engine room gauges flashing white faces in my torch light, I floated very still for a moment. Then common sense got the better of me and instead of silting out the engine room while trying to get closer I reached out to snap a few photos at arm’s length. Evidence secured, it was time to leave.

Back out into open ocean and up onto the deck above. I found my way into the top of the engine room through a large open panel and grabbed a shot of Craig coming back up the stairs several floors above where I had just been. After a quick look around I headed for the shot line, looking back from 90m to see the rest of the team gathering together to leave the wreck in the first photo above. A fantastic dive, with more secrets to discover.

The HMS Russell was a WWI pre-dreadnought. Unlike the WWII wrecks that we dived first in Malta, the Schnellboot and the HMS Southwold, the Russell has been on the bottom for a century. She was launched in February 1902 as one of six Duncan-class ships with the new four cylinder triple-expanision engines. During the Great War the Russell spent time at Scapa Flow and on the Northern Patrol. After a stint in the English Channel, a refit in Ireland and supporting the Gallipoli campaign up to evacuation of troops in early 1916, she was waiting to enter the Grand Harbour in Malta in April 2016 when she struck two mines.

Two mines laid by the German U-boat U-73 the night before caused a fire in the aft of the ship, following by an explosion at one of the turrets. The order to abandon ship was given. She took over 20 minutes to sink and of the 750 people on board, 625 were saved. This included a number who swam the four miles to shore.

The wreck has landed upsidedown on the seafloor, probably tipped over on descent by the weight of the armour and guns on her deck. The edge of the hull is sitting about a metre above the sand, allowing just enough space for divers to swim across the sand with the deck overhead. Unlike the two wrecks we dived initially in Malta, the visibility here was poor. Murky water made it both difficult to identify key features of the ship, and difficult to get clear photos.

We landed near the bow of the wreck and I swam out for a look up at her looming out of the dark. The Russell was 140m long and in 115m of water there was no chance of an end to end swim. Instead we headed along the side, checking out the large guns lying out sideways on the sand. She has been well and truly colonised by shells and sponges, and I got buzzed by a large John Dory fish, living beside the hull.

While this was an amazing dive for the history, the vis and the orientation meant there wasn’t as much to see. A dive on her stern end to see the damage caused by the mines would be interesting – maybe next time.

The HMS Southwold was a WWII British destroyer. Built during the war and launched in late 1941, she was sunk less than six months later on March 24th, 1942. She was tasked with escorting the crippled HMS Breconshire to Malta after leaving the convoy. As she attempted to pass a line to the Breconshire, she hit a British mine. The resulting explosion in the engine room killed five people on board. With her back up generator fired up and crew working to plug the leaks, the Southwold was taken under tow by a tug. Shortly thereafter her hull began to split in half and the remaining crew were transferred to another ship as she went down.

The split in the wreck means the bow and the stern of the ship are about 250m apart. Unless you have a handy scooter these are two separate dives. On this occasion we dived the stern, starting the dive by dropping down to see the propellors half buried in the seabed. From there it was up to the forward portion of the stern to examine the wreckage and destruction. The exposed portions of broken hull and bits of engine are a tangled mess as they lean out onto the sand.

It takes a little bit of effort to get inside the hull. After a swim through what was easily available, I retired to the top deck to find all the interesting things. On the port side there is a small room with shelves full of cans and little bottles that you can see in the second photo here. Towards the broken end of the ship on the top deck there is a whole arrangement of bathrooms – sinks, toilets and urinals that have mostly filled up with sealife. These are fun to swim through, and they’re definitely now a loo with a view.

Then of course there’s a big gun up on the top deck. The stern gun was a two barrel 4″ gun. It’s now encrusted with sponges and surrounded by little fish in the clear blue waters of Malta.

Built in 1939 and sunk in 1942, the Motor Torpedo Boat the S31 had a short life. She had a thin metal hull with a mahogany wood coating, to assist her in slipping through mine fields. With 3 diesel engines on board she had a maximum speed of 38 knots carrying her crew of 24. In the early hours of May 10th the S31 was one of 7 MTBs lying in wait for the Welshman, who was expected to arrive in Valletta Harbour. The S31 had just finished placing a new minefield to the north west when she collided with a mine. Less than 30 minutes later she was underwater with 13 men still on board.

The Schnellboot lies in about 70m of water with her mahogany hull casing rotted away to reveal her interior. We descended in fantastic vis to see the length of the wreck laid out before us. She sits upright on the sand. I headed to the bow to find I could see straight through the pointy end and into the wreck. Dave squeezed inside through the ribs of the hull to poke his head into the front of the ship for this photo.

Above the front of the bow were the two torpedo tubes with torpedos still intact. The starboard torpedo tube has fallen to the sand on one side, while the port side one is sitting high on the wreck.

With more than a few divers descending with us the good vis quickly deteriorated. Finding good photos was about finding clear spots of water between the sandy clouds. I like this second shot across the middle of the hull as it shows the clear water inside and out. The deeper wreck had more growth on it than the more recently sunk checkout dive in 21m we did the day before.

The supply ships present at Truk Lagoon during Operation Hailstone in 1944 were in the process of loading and unloading their supplies. With the world at war, a lot of these supplies were munitions big and small. The photo above shows one of the front holds of the Sankisan Maru with thousands of bullets piled up. Diving over the piles of lead is a strange experience – these bullets never got to their intended destinations and now sit peacefully on the bottom of a tropical blue ocean.

These massive shells are quick fire ammunition in brass casings. From the other end it’s easy to see that they’re still loaded and ready so go, despite being underwater for 70 years. I saw these on my second day of diving at Truk and thought they were pretty large. But of course there’s always something bigger around the corner. These are torpedo bodies:

The Gosei Maru was a submarine tender now sitting on her side in the shallows. These massive torpedo bodies lie in her aft holds, partially spilled out onto the sand. The torpedoes were capable of 20 miles of underwater travel to reach a target. They contained both fuel and compressed air or oxygen. As the bodies rusted through over the decades underwater there have been periodic explosions of the gas tanks within. I can imagine that even a small bang would make me quite nervous while swimming past this much unexploded ordnance, and these torpedo bodies seem unlikely to produce small noises.

The torpedoes come with contra-rotating propellors on the back, designed to increase torque across a smaller blade radius. On the opposite side of this hold we could see stacks of torpedo batteries spilling out of their casings. If the bullets are too small and the torpedoes too big, hold number 5 of the Yamagiri Maru has these artillery shells. Supposedly 14 inch shells, they are over a metre long and designed to go in the main armament guns of battleships. They’re a popular photographic subject and with a bit of daylight coming in to help with lighting I can see why.

The Yamagiri was damaged by a US submarine in 1943 and ended up at Truk Lagoon for repairs. She was still being repaired when Operation Hailstone started in February 1944 and was directly hit by three bombs. The third one started a fire on board and she sunk quickly. If she had stayed afloat much longer there might not have been much of her left once the fire got to this cargo.

Propellors are one of the best wreck features to find underwater. They’re nice and recognisable and they always hang out in the same place. If they’re still somewhere down there, they’re usually fairly easy to find and identify. And the bigger the ship wreck, the bigger the propellor, right up to some very impressive sizes. There’s something about swimming between massive blades that could have quite easily chopped you up into little bits while in operation.

A lot of the regularly dived wrecks out of Melbourne were scuttled and in some cases had their props removed before heading down to the ocean floor. Whereas the Truk shipwrecks went down with everything on board, so whether the propellors are present or not is more a question of where the bombs hit. From a photographic perspective it was also a question of one propellor or two. As you can see in the first photo here of the Heian Maru, two propellors made life a lot easier. One propellor set-ups could be found poked between massive hull plates, like the above photo of the prop of the Kiyosumi. With a bit of encrusting coral in the way, it’s hard to visualise the propellor distinct from the surrounding ship.

The dual prop ships required very clear water to get both sets of blades in one shot. On the other hand they lend themselves nicely to single shots. The Heian Maru lies on her port side, and this port side prop is down in the dark on the seabed, shaded by the hull. The largest wreck in the Lagoon at over 160m long and 11,615 tonnes, she was a luxury passenger liner before being converted to military use as a submarine tender. These two massive propellors gave her a cruising speed of 15 knots.

This photo shows a prop built for a completely different purpose. The bracing and the pitch of the three blades give some indication – the Fumizuki was built for speed. This Japanese destroyer was the only one we dived on this trip and it contrasted starkly with the large holds and spacious interiors of the cargo & supply ships. With a displacement of just over 1,900 tonnes she was narrow and low to the water. She was also capable of a top speed of 34 knots.

Unlike the four bladed props of the cargo ships and the three bladed prop of the Fumizuki, the submarine the I169 appears to have had a five bladed prop. She was on a supply run to Truk after Operation Hailstone when word of an impending American attack had her crew rush to dive. When the sub didn’t surface after the attack was over divers were sent down. They discovered an open valve and flooded control room. Unable to access the controls to lift her, her crew was reduced to tapping on the hull to communicate with the divers. After several days of unsuccessful attempts to raise her the tapping inside had ceased. The Japanese Navy used depth charges to destroy the stern, presumably to protect their technology from future attempts to raise her. Half of this prop is one of the few easily recognisable bits in the debris on the sand.

For something a little bit different there’s the plane propellors. These are from the Emily, a sea plane who now sits on the sand in 13m. She landed upsidedown with her landing gear sticking up towards the surface. Her four engines are no longer attached to each wing. The coral is not as quick to grown on the aluminium bodies of the planes but there are a few soft corals making a start on colonising each prop blade. This is in stark contrast to the coral growth on the prop of the Yamagiri Maru in the next photo.

From the photos I’ve already posted here of the Truk Lagoon shipwrecks, you might be forgiven for thinking there was very little for your average reef-loving diver to look at. The insides of the wrecks are dark and rusty (albeit filled with interesting things) and the deeper wrecks like the San Francisco Maru get less light and less coral encrusting them. This post is to correct those illusions – the Truk Lagoon wrecks are covered in tropical coral and very active fish life. In the shot above you can see the small fish swarming around the kingpost pair, ready to dart back into the protective corals should the predatory trevally swim by.

Most of the shallower wrecks have at least one mast or kingpost and where the ship is sitting upright these provide a brilliant alternative to blue water deco. I didn’t have the weight allowance for a macro lens on this trip and it would have been a travesty not to take wide angle wreck shots on every dive. On the other hand, I can see the attraction of spending an underwater hour or two carefully looking through the coral life for interesting critters.

The corals seem to be attracted to the steel superstructure of the ships. The planes and plane parts we dived on were made of aluminium and definitely didn’t promote the same growth. In this shot of the Betty Bomber above you can clearly see most of the metal structure of the plane, in spite of her position in shallow sunny waters. The soft coral that has managed to get started has found a crack or rivet hole to anchor itself on her wing.

On the deck of the big ships, the lifeboat davits were invariably providing support to a whole community of reef life. The pink soft corals look especially good against the blue water. It was frustrating trying to light large structures as my strobes only have a range of a meter or two underwater. The coral coating continued well down into the blue beyond the reach of my lights. It would be interesting to set up a strobe bar and some underwater lighting assistance to adequately light a lot more of the coloured superstructure.

In the meantime I had to settle for lighting smaller subjects with hazy blue outlines in the background. These are the railings on top of the bridge of the Nippo Maru. She sits on the bottom in 50m and the corresponding coral growth is slightly less prolific. It makes it easier to identify ship features under the growth and doesn’t stop rust being turned into brilliant colours. You can see the identification problem in the photo below – this is bow gun and foredeck of the Fujikawa Maru, weighed down under 70 years of organic growth.

Diving in Truk Lagoon was sobering at times. The stark evidence of the resources and human lives funnelled into causing death and destruction contrasts with the atoll’s current peaceful ambience. On two of the wrecks we dived we were able to smell fuel oil on the surface before getting in. Seeing the damage done by torpedos and swimming past human remains left me with a few contemplative afternoons. It’s good to balance that out by seeing nature reclaiming these massive war vessels as marine ecosystems form around twisted metal.

See all my Truk Lagoon posts here.