Truk Lagoon Propellors

 Ocean diving, Wrecks  No Responses »
Jan 262016
 
Truk Lagoon Propellors

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 [read more…]

Coral growth on the Truk Lagoon shipwrecks

 Ocean diving, Wrecks  No Responses »
Jan 122016
 
Coral growth on the Truk Lagoon shipwrecks

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 [read more…]

Engine rooms in Truk Lagoon

 Ocean diving, rEvo, Wrecks  1 Response »
Jan 052016
 
Engine rooms in Truk Lagoon

After an epic 2 weeks, 23 different wrecks and nearly 4,000 photos I’ve made it home from Truk Lagoon. As I churn through the photos (Why do I have way too many “final picks”? How does one choose between a giant propellor shot and a well lit cargo hold interior? How many trip photos can one reasonably ask friends and family to look at?) I was struck by how much I learned about ship layouts during my visit. The normal wrecks dived in Melbourne were mostly scuttled in the 1930s or 40s. This means both that anything interesting was removed first, and they’ve had a lot more time to break down. In many cases all that’s left is the hull and [read more…]

Truk Lagoon: The San Francisco Maru

 Ocean diving, rEvo, Wrecks  No Responses »
Dec 242015
 
Truk Lagoon: The San Francisco Maru

Truk Lagoon is a long way from anywhere. After United cancelled their flight from Cairns to Guam I re-routed my trip via Hong Kong. This made the first leg of the trip nine hours in the air instead of three while leaving the second leg to Guam at five hours. After two international flights, a 14 hour stopover in delightful Guam and the TSA going through every item in my hand luggage, I arrived in Chuuk late on Sunday night excited for two weeks of diving. With some creative packing and use of the hand luggage allowance I managed to make it with rEvo, camera and extra strobes. I’m diving at Blue Lagoon Resort and enjoying their excellent rebreather services. After [read more…]

Rusty stuff on the Milora

 Ocean diving, rEvo, Wrecks  No Responses »
Dec 012015
 
Rusty stuff on the Milora

About the wreck The Milora was a steam powered coal cargo transport, built in 1921 in Melbourne and initially named the Emita. She had a cargo of 2,800 tonnes of coal on board when she ran aground in the Port Phillip Heads in September 1934. After removing 1,800 tonnes of coal she was refloated a week later with most of her hold flooded, and taken to Williamstown between two tugs. By 1935 she was found to be uneconomical to repair, stripped of her valuable parts and taken out and scuttled. The Milora now sits in about 40m of water. Originally 100m long, she is one of the larger wrecks in the Ship’s Graveyard and a great dive. About the dive We’d done [read more…]

Wreck diving the Wareatea

 Ocean diving, rEvo, Wrecks  2 Responses »
Sep 222015
 
Wreck diving the Wareatea

About the wreck Unlike other wrecks in the Ship’s Graveyard, the Wareatea was a passenger and cargo transport, built in 1883. She ran between Melbourne and the north coast of Tasmania between Federation in 1901 and the end of WWII in 1945, when she was scuttled. The wreck has great life on it with nice sponge growth and schools of fish around. While the bow is somewhat twisted and flat to the seabed the stern stands up and has the prop and rudder still in position. About the dive After a few weeks of diving in some pretty average vis, I was wondering if wreck diving was all it’s cracked up to me. Upon jumping into deep blue ocean I decided [read more…]

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