Angela Robson
23-06-2011, 09:49
I had my 2nd trip to Truk Lagoon after a 2 year absense. A few changes have been noted, both topside and underwater.
I travelled with my husband, Paul, and best mates, Tim and Liz (just the 4 of us). We thought we would save a few £££s by booking direct instead of via a travel agent this time.
We flew with KLM for the first part of the journey, followed by Continental for the 2nd part of the journey.
Myself and Paul flew from Aberdeen to Schipol, while Tim and Liz flew from Leeds/Bradford. We met up at the gate for our flight from Schipol to Manila, Philippines.
We had 14 hrs to spend in Manila. We had pre-booked a hotel on the outbound journey, Manila Airport Hotel.
The hotel was a cheap, last minute thought, but turned out to be quite pleasant. There was a van there to collect us from the airport, which none of us were expecting, as it stated on the itinerary that we had to contact them once we landed to sort the transfer.
The hotel was only a 5 minute ride from the airport, we had to pay a little extra for early check in, but after after what seemed like a day of travelling, we didn’t care.
We had enough time to have a sleep and shower. There was a bar in the same complex as the hotel, where we spent the rest of the day. We had about 20 or so beers, and a meal each, and the bill came to the equivalent of around £20!
The only downside to the hotel I can think of, was that it didn’t provide towels, and I didn’t pack any towels as I thought hotels provided them! I had to towel dry myself using the shower mat!
We returned to the airport for check-in for our Continental flight. OMG, I’ve never had such a confusing time queing for check-in. The check-in area is completely all over the place. The queues for the check-in desks interlinked with each other, and twice we lost where we were supposed to be at.
Once in the correct queue, it was pretty straight forward. They weigh your luggage at the end of the queue rather than at the check-in desk itself.
The flight from Manila to Guam is about 3.5 hrs in duration, and we had a couple of hrs in Guam airport before our final flight to Chuuk.
We arrived in Chuuk mid-morning, the transfer for Blue Lagoon Resort was there as usual, and very well organised as usual.
We arrived at the Blue Lagoon Resort and checked in. After check in, we went down to the dive centre and signed for our permits and sorted out our equipment for diving the next day. We were all to be diving on independant twins.
We had a choice of having 1 dive that afternoon, or waiting for our diving package to commence the following morning. Myself and Liz opted out of diving that afternoon as we were too tired, but Paul and Tim went diving. They had their “check-out” dive on the Heian Maru. Myself and Liz ordered a club sandwich and sat on the communal balcony until we started nodding off. That was our queue to go to our rooms for a lie down!
We arrived down at the dive centre the following morning to be introduced to our new dive guide and boat handler. While there we bumped into our old dive guide from our previous trip, and he remembered us!
Our new dive guide was a young man by the name of Chunky, who had stained red teeth from the local custom of chewing beetlenut (betel nut). Our boat handler was the same boat handler from our previous trip, Apo.
There was a young woman on board our dive boat, Melanie. Her husband had a cold and took the day off diving. Melanie and her husband, Paul, were single tank divers, who were not willing to go below 40 metres or go into deco.
Melanie had never dived Truk Lagoon before, and we wanted to do a mix of old and new dives. Melanie and Paul were open to our suggestions, so we went with our dive sites.
Old dives covered were the Fujikawa, Nippo, Shinkoko, Sankisan, Kiyosumi, Gosei, Kensho, Yamigiri, Hoki, San Francisco (the deeper dives were done by us 4 after Melanie and Paul had left the lagoon), Rio de Janeiro, Betty Bomber, Aikoko, Momokawa. New dives included the Amagisan, Unkai, Shotan and 2 reef dives. We also managed a night dive on the Fujikawa.
We had 3 surface intervals on Fanamu Island, which is a nursery for baby black tip reef sharks. They swim around the shallows of the tiny island (which you can walk round in 3 minutes). I even put on my Facebook status that I had “paddled / piddled with the black tips of Fanamu!”
The trip felt different this time. Maybe because this time round we knew what to expect, or maybe because we had felt more comfortable diving with the indepentant twin set up. Chunky, as a guide, had a different style than Estos. Estos took us through the penetration of the wrecks with what felt like rooms of space, whereas Chunky seemed to prefer the tiny nooks and crannies approach.
During the first few days of the trip, something happened to almost each one of us, whether it was getting caught in a tiny space, or loosing the rest of the group. Also, the first week of penetration was slightly ruined by Melanie and Paul, who had never done much wreck diving before, so they had kicked up the slit before the rest of us managed to gain access.
After a discussion topside, we decided that as we had already dived these sites before, and Melanie and Paul hadn’t, we would allow them to follow the guide, while we would hang back and do our own thing. This would allow us more time, which included long deco stops. Things seemed to go more smoothly after that.
We wanted to make things a bit different this time. We had suggested going to one of the outer reefs, and also a night dive. We each had a ‘milestone’ dive while in Truk. I had logged my 250th dive, while my husband, Paul, logged his 200th, Liz logged her 650th, and Tim logged his 900th.
The night dive on the Fujikawa was to be a joint celebratory dive for us. We waited until Melanie and Paul had left, it was now just the 4 of us on the dive boat.
Tim had the idea of taking some “chum” down with us to attrack the sharks. None of us were best pleased with the idea, but we agreed to it. Tim asked the kitchen staff for some left overs. We were given a bag of fresh tuna heads and tails. We made Tim take it! Afterall, it was his idea!
As it turns out, we didn’t need the chum. As we descended onto the funnel, there were already 3 reef sharks present. When we arrived they circled the wreck. Then Tim got the bag of tuna out, which ignited their interest.
This was actually my first ever night dive, as was my husbands. Tim and Liz both had done several night dives before. Tim said that this was his best ever night dive, whereas Liz said it was her “craziest”. I just thought it was amazing, and was surprised at how calm and relaxed I was in the pitch black with sharks swimming about!
For the reef dive, we paid a little extra, and headed for Pizion Reef, on the Southern passage. It felt like a long boat ride. We could see the barrier reef approaching, and we knew that once we exited through the mouth of the reef, into the Pacific Ocean the waves were going to be massive.
The waves on the “outside” were not disappointing. Our dive guide instructed us to stay below 10 metres to stay out of the swell.
We descended onto the reef, between 25 – 30 metres. The reef was beautiful. It just seemed like a reef in the Red Sea, only it was the Pacific ocean.
There were plenty of grey reef sharks floating about the reef, and we even had one of their little buddies, Remora, follow us. I thought it was cute at first, but it got quite irritating after a while.
Our dive guide took his spear gun with him, and caught 6 fish in total. For our surface interval, we pitched up at one of the islands on the reef, where Chunky and Apo made a fire to grill the fish Chunky just caught.
There was a sheet of tarpaulin tied to trees to protect us from the sub-tropical “storms” which passed through about 3 times while we were on this island.
Apo cut down some palm leaves, which was used as a platter for the freshly grilled fish.
After the surface interval, Chunky suggested another shark dive, this time within the lagoon. There is a tiny reef not so far from Fanamu. We came prepared with another bag of tuna heads & tails.
We had several sharks, a mix of grey reefs and black tips, in this feeding frenzy. We sat round in a semi-circle and watched. The sharks were coming in all directions, from the sides, and from behind.
The dive was fairly shallow, so no deco was involved.
We really liked the “new wrecks” too. We have added them to our “to do again” list for our 3rd trip to Truk!
As I mentioned at the beginning of this report, we had noted a few changes.
Topside:
The dive boats now come with a Nitrox hang-tank as well as compressed air hang tank. This is new, and the BLDS have only been operating with these Nitrox tanks for the last few weeks. These Nitrox tanks allow for accelerated deco. Only Tim used the hang tank, as he was the only one who had 2 gas mixing computers. The rest of us had 1 gas mix computer, and 1 conventional computer.
The lowest mix the Nitrox hang tank contained was 48%, whilst the highest mix was 52%.
The Sunset Bar at the Blue Lagoon Resort has had an extention built, and now contains a communal TV (on which we watched the royal wedding) and a pool table.
The rooms now consisted of a hair drier, new towels (not the old shabby towels), and a much more improved pressure in the showers. Although the hot water was scarce (I only had 2 warmish showers the whole 12 days we were there). There was a wee basket of complimentary stuff you would normally expect to see in a hotel room, like soap, shampoo, lotion, etc.
The service in the restaurant is still slow, however, we managed to get everything we ordered this time round! Everything that was on the menu was available!! And they also included a spoonful of veg (frozen veg, but still veg) with every meal too. We never left the restaurant hungry, nor undernourished this time!
Our first time in Truk, we spent many surface intervals on the communal balcony eating snacks and drinking drinks we’d bought from the gift shop.
This time round, we bought our snacks from the local mini supermarket, and we also bought in loads of tins of Bud, and stocked them in the fridges in our rooms. Tim and Liz also brought a travel kettle with them, and 4 mugs, so we always had a nice cup of tea (made with BOILING water – in the restaurant its only served barely hot) and a couple of beers whilst filling in our logs books.
The changes noted underwater was the increase of shark appearances around the wrecks. On our first visit to the lagoon, we only had a handful of encounters, whereas, on this visit, there was only a handful of dives that didn’t include sharks.
On two occasions, we had a shark circle us during deco stops.
The first occasion, was during a deco stop on the Amagisan Maru. We still had between 15 – 18 minutes of deco left to do, when a shark appeared below us. I didn’t have a clue what kind of shark it was, I just knew it had white tips. At first, all seemed well, with the shark just cruising below us. However, its behaviour changed, and it attempted to swim up towards in an aggressive manner twice. Tim screamed at it through his regs, and the shark then swam off into the blue. We all took a sigh of relief. It was the most threatened I’ve felt by a shark.
On board the boat (and still to this day) the debates of its identity continue. Tim was convinced it was a Oceanic White Tip, while Liz is convinced it was a Silvertip. Unfortunately, no-one got any decent footage of the shark. Liz’s photo is too far away, but when zoomed in, it does look like the fin is rounded. Our video footage, it just looks blue against a blue back ground!
The thing is, in hindsight, the shark was present the whole time whilst on the wreck. The bait ball of fish which followed us around the wreck should’ve given us a hint that there was a shark close by, but neither of us thought anything of the bait ball, we just assumed there was a tuna or something lurking.
And it just so happens, that the following day, we had a grey reef shark on the Aikoko. It appeared just as we were about to make our ascend up the shot.
Chunky had just speared a fish, and the shark was on him in an instant. Liz shouted at Chunky through her reg, where he spun round in time to see the shark. The shark retreated, but continued to hang around.
We had a 26 minute deco stop with this shark circling us, both from below and level with us. Chunky had speared 2 fish during the dive. He released the dead Trevally which then floated above our heads on the surface. Apo (our boat handler) got a stick and managed to bring the fish close enough to the boat for him to pick it up.
However, Chunky still had a dying fish in his BCD pocket. You could actually see it’s flicking tail sticking out! We did not feel threatened by this sharks presence. It was more interested in Chunky than us. And Chunky had his spear gun ready (just in case things got nasty). But the shark was only being curious, and showed no signs of aggression.
We had noted the lack of Eagle rays. We saw zero eagle rays, and only a few sting rays. The life on the wrecks on this visit seemed much more active than I remember. There is so much life on these wrecks.
We were disappointed to be told by Chunky that the Kensho Maru no longer had a Bridge. It had been ripped off by the Odyssey after they shotted the Bridge, and the sea was rough enough to rip it off. We’re now not sure about this fact, as our last dive of the trip was spent on the deck of the Kensho and the bridge was there! Perhaps he got confused with the Kiyosumi??
We’re not sure whether the increase in shark activity was shear coincidence, or whether it had something to do with Chunky spear fishing! Probably both, as he was only spear fishing from the night dive onwards, which was during our 2nd week.
We had noted, that the dive groups present this time round didn’t interact with one another. We all remembered from the first trip, and all the groups got on well together, and were solialising together at the bar and communal balcony. It was very disappointing to see that no-one interacted the same as before, apart from the last group to arrive, which was a group from the west coast, America. They were on the same return flight from Truk as us. They arrived on the island only for 5 days diving, after spending a week on the Aggressor liveaboard, Palau.
Once we were all checked in at Chuuk airport, Donnie (one of the American’s) said he was heading to the cafe next door to the airport, and he invited us along. It was so nice, as the cafe had air-con, which the airport doesn’t. I felt so uncomfortable at the airport, I could feel the sweat dripping down the back of my legs! Yuck!
We spent a good hour or so in the cafe, killing time while we waited for our flight to be called. This is such a good idea, I’ll remember that for the next time. It’s much more comfortable than spending 3 hrs in the hot and clammy airport.
We had another 14 hrs in Manila on the return journey. We had booked into a different hotel, Heritage Hotel. The hotel was lovely, very plush. There was no transfer though. We had to make our way to the hotel lounge at the airport and call for a taxi. They sent a van and charged us approx. £25! What a rip off.
The hotel was very nice, with towels, and hot running water! We had a drink in the bar, and thought it would be an idea to find a bar nearby.
We walked the streets of down-town Manila at night. The place had a pungant smell of mixed stale and fresh p**s. Liz was nearly sick and started wreching. We made our way across the walk-way to the other side of the road where we saw a karaoke bar. It turned out to be a brothel! The fact that it was next door to a place called ‘Cotton Girls’ should have been a give away when you think about it. After witnessing women throwing themselves at our husbands, the four of us made an informed decision to head back to the safety of the hotel, where the drinks were not as expensive as we expected.
We had a good sleep, showered and changed our clothes to our “UK” clothes for the return journey. Back to the havoc of Manila departures.
Would I go back? To Truk definitely. Wild horses couldn’t stop me! In fact, none of us wanted to leave, and I actually cried after my last dive! I felt really emotional.
Manila? No. I’ve read reports from various people to try and avoid travelling through Manila if you can. If we were to go back to Manila, we’d prefer to stay at the Manila Airport Hotel rather than the plush Heritage Hotel. The Manila Airport was adequate for our needs.
Overall, I loved this holiday. Truk is by far one of my favourite places, and after 2 trips, there are still wrecks that we have yet to do. Some are deeper than I would like, too deep for compressed air diving (it costs approx. $350 for ONE trimix dive from BLDS). Plus I’m not trimix trained yet (that day will come).
Truk is the only place I’ve been where I feel completely relaxed. In fact, we’d be watching the news on the TV at the Sunset Bar, and I’d think “oh yeah, I forgot all that crap is going on in the “outside” world”.
It is quite hard to describe, but it really does feel like you are in a bubble, far far away from the goings on in the “outside world.
I’d recommend this destination to anyone. Even if you are not a “wrekkie”, you’d still enjoy the marine growth on the artificial reefs made by the wrecks. I’m not exactly what you’d call a “wrekkie” but I enjoy diving the wrecks of Truk. I like that I’m diving a piece of history.
For the 2nd time, we did the land based option. We stayed at the Blue Lagoon Resort. There is also another land based option, Truk Stop. I believe there is another hotel, but I don’t know the name.
There is also the liveaboard options, Odyssey and Thorfinn. The Odyssey was busy, and had a constant stream of divers, as they dock at the BLDS while waiting to get on, and there transfer to and from the airport is operated by the Blue Lagoon Resort I believe (I could be wrong).
I travelled with my husband, Paul, and best mates, Tim and Liz (just the 4 of us). We thought we would save a few £££s by booking direct instead of via a travel agent this time.
We flew with KLM for the first part of the journey, followed by Continental for the 2nd part of the journey.
Myself and Paul flew from Aberdeen to Schipol, while Tim and Liz flew from Leeds/Bradford. We met up at the gate for our flight from Schipol to Manila, Philippines.
We had 14 hrs to spend in Manila. We had pre-booked a hotel on the outbound journey, Manila Airport Hotel.
The hotel was a cheap, last minute thought, but turned out to be quite pleasant. There was a van there to collect us from the airport, which none of us were expecting, as it stated on the itinerary that we had to contact them once we landed to sort the transfer.
The hotel was only a 5 minute ride from the airport, we had to pay a little extra for early check in, but after after what seemed like a day of travelling, we didn’t care.
We had enough time to have a sleep and shower. There was a bar in the same complex as the hotel, where we spent the rest of the day. We had about 20 or so beers, and a meal each, and the bill came to the equivalent of around £20!
The only downside to the hotel I can think of, was that it didn’t provide towels, and I didn’t pack any towels as I thought hotels provided them! I had to towel dry myself using the shower mat!
We returned to the airport for check-in for our Continental flight. OMG, I’ve never had such a confusing time queing for check-in. The check-in area is completely all over the place. The queues for the check-in desks interlinked with each other, and twice we lost where we were supposed to be at.
Once in the correct queue, it was pretty straight forward. They weigh your luggage at the end of the queue rather than at the check-in desk itself.
The flight from Manila to Guam is about 3.5 hrs in duration, and we had a couple of hrs in Guam airport before our final flight to Chuuk.
We arrived in Chuuk mid-morning, the transfer for Blue Lagoon Resort was there as usual, and very well organised as usual.
We arrived at the Blue Lagoon Resort and checked in. After check in, we went down to the dive centre and signed for our permits and sorted out our equipment for diving the next day. We were all to be diving on independant twins.
We had a choice of having 1 dive that afternoon, or waiting for our diving package to commence the following morning. Myself and Liz opted out of diving that afternoon as we were too tired, but Paul and Tim went diving. They had their “check-out” dive on the Heian Maru. Myself and Liz ordered a club sandwich and sat on the communal balcony until we started nodding off. That was our queue to go to our rooms for a lie down!
We arrived down at the dive centre the following morning to be introduced to our new dive guide and boat handler. While there we bumped into our old dive guide from our previous trip, and he remembered us!
Our new dive guide was a young man by the name of Chunky, who had stained red teeth from the local custom of chewing beetlenut (betel nut). Our boat handler was the same boat handler from our previous trip, Apo.
There was a young woman on board our dive boat, Melanie. Her husband had a cold and took the day off diving. Melanie and her husband, Paul, were single tank divers, who were not willing to go below 40 metres or go into deco.
Melanie had never dived Truk Lagoon before, and we wanted to do a mix of old and new dives. Melanie and Paul were open to our suggestions, so we went with our dive sites.
Old dives covered were the Fujikawa, Nippo, Shinkoko, Sankisan, Kiyosumi, Gosei, Kensho, Yamigiri, Hoki, San Francisco (the deeper dives were done by us 4 after Melanie and Paul had left the lagoon), Rio de Janeiro, Betty Bomber, Aikoko, Momokawa. New dives included the Amagisan, Unkai, Shotan and 2 reef dives. We also managed a night dive on the Fujikawa.
We had 3 surface intervals on Fanamu Island, which is a nursery for baby black tip reef sharks. They swim around the shallows of the tiny island (which you can walk round in 3 minutes). I even put on my Facebook status that I had “paddled / piddled with the black tips of Fanamu!”
The trip felt different this time. Maybe because this time round we knew what to expect, or maybe because we had felt more comfortable diving with the indepentant twin set up. Chunky, as a guide, had a different style than Estos. Estos took us through the penetration of the wrecks with what felt like rooms of space, whereas Chunky seemed to prefer the tiny nooks and crannies approach.
During the first few days of the trip, something happened to almost each one of us, whether it was getting caught in a tiny space, or loosing the rest of the group. Also, the first week of penetration was slightly ruined by Melanie and Paul, who had never done much wreck diving before, so they had kicked up the slit before the rest of us managed to gain access.
After a discussion topside, we decided that as we had already dived these sites before, and Melanie and Paul hadn’t, we would allow them to follow the guide, while we would hang back and do our own thing. This would allow us more time, which included long deco stops. Things seemed to go more smoothly after that.
We wanted to make things a bit different this time. We had suggested going to one of the outer reefs, and also a night dive. We each had a ‘milestone’ dive while in Truk. I had logged my 250th dive, while my husband, Paul, logged his 200th, Liz logged her 650th, and Tim logged his 900th.
The night dive on the Fujikawa was to be a joint celebratory dive for us. We waited until Melanie and Paul had left, it was now just the 4 of us on the dive boat.
Tim had the idea of taking some “chum” down with us to attrack the sharks. None of us were best pleased with the idea, but we agreed to it. Tim asked the kitchen staff for some left overs. We were given a bag of fresh tuna heads and tails. We made Tim take it! Afterall, it was his idea!
As it turns out, we didn’t need the chum. As we descended onto the funnel, there were already 3 reef sharks present. When we arrived they circled the wreck. Then Tim got the bag of tuna out, which ignited their interest.
This was actually my first ever night dive, as was my husbands. Tim and Liz both had done several night dives before. Tim said that this was his best ever night dive, whereas Liz said it was her “craziest”. I just thought it was amazing, and was surprised at how calm and relaxed I was in the pitch black with sharks swimming about!
For the reef dive, we paid a little extra, and headed for Pizion Reef, on the Southern passage. It felt like a long boat ride. We could see the barrier reef approaching, and we knew that once we exited through the mouth of the reef, into the Pacific Ocean the waves were going to be massive.
The waves on the “outside” were not disappointing. Our dive guide instructed us to stay below 10 metres to stay out of the swell.
We descended onto the reef, between 25 – 30 metres. The reef was beautiful. It just seemed like a reef in the Red Sea, only it was the Pacific ocean.
There were plenty of grey reef sharks floating about the reef, and we even had one of their little buddies, Remora, follow us. I thought it was cute at first, but it got quite irritating after a while.
Our dive guide took his spear gun with him, and caught 6 fish in total. For our surface interval, we pitched up at one of the islands on the reef, where Chunky and Apo made a fire to grill the fish Chunky just caught.
There was a sheet of tarpaulin tied to trees to protect us from the sub-tropical “storms” which passed through about 3 times while we were on this island.
Apo cut down some palm leaves, which was used as a platter for the freshly grilled fish.
After the surface interval, Chunky suggested another shark dive, this time within the lagoon. There is a tiny reef not so far from Fanamu. We came prepared with another bag of tuna heads & tails.
We had several sharks, a mix of grey reefs and black tips, in this feeding frenzy. We sat round in a semi-circle and watched. The sharks were coming in all directions, from the sides, and from behind.
The dive was fairly shallow, so no deco was involved.
We really liked the “new wrecks” too. We have added them to our “to do again” list for our 3rd trip to Truk!
As I mentioned at the beginning of this report, we had noted a few changes.
Topside:
The dive boats now come with a Nitrox hang-tank as well as compressed air hang tank. This is new, and the BLDS have only been operating with these Nitrox tanks for the last few weeks. These Nitrox tanks allow for accelerated deco. Only Tim used the hang tank, as he was the only one who had 2 gas mixing computers. The rest of us had 1 gas mix computer, and 1 conventional computer.
The lowest mix the Nitrox hang tank contained was 48%, whilst the highest mix was 52%.
The Sunset Bar at the Blue Lagoon Resort has had an extention built, and now contains a communal TV (on which we watched the royal wedding) and a pool table.
The rooms now consisted of a hair drier, new towels (not the old shabby towels), and a much more improved pressure in the showers. Although the hot water was scarce (I only had 2 warmish showers the whole 12 days we were there). There was a wee basket of complimentary stuff you would normally expect to see in a hotel room, like soap, shampoo, lotion, etc.
The service in the restaurant is still slow, however, we managed to get everything we ordered this time round! Everything that was on the menu was available!! And they also included a spoonful of veg (frozen veg, but still veg) with every meal too. We never left the restaurant hungry, nor undernourished this time!
Our first time in Truk, we spent many surface intervals on the communal balcony eating snacks and drinking drinks we’d bought from the gift shop.
This time round, we bought our snacks from the local mini supermarket, and we also bought in loads of tins of Bud, and stocked them in the fridges in our rooms. Tim and Liz also brought a travel kettle with them, and 4 mugs, so we always had a nice cup of tea (made with BOILING water – in the restaurant its only served barely hot) and a couple of beers whilst filling in our logs books.
The changes noted underwater was the increase of shark appearances around the wrecks. On our first visit to the lagoon, we only had a handful of encounters, whereas, on this visit, there was only a handful of dives that didn’t include sharks.
On two occasions, we had a shark circle us during deco stops.
The first occasion, was during a deco stop on the Amagisan Maru. We still had between 15 – 18 minutes of deco left to do, when a shark appeared below us. I didn’t have a clue what kind of shark it was, I just knew it had white tips. At first, all seemed well, with the shark just cruising below us. However, its behaviour changed, and it attempted to swim up towards in an aggressive manner twice. Tim screamed at it through his regs, and the shark then swam off into the blue. We all took a sigh of relief. It was the most threatened I’ve felt by a shark.
On board the boat (and still to this day) the debates of its identity continue. Tim was convinced it was a Oceanic White Tip, while Liz is convinced it was a Silvertip. Unfortunately, no-one got any decent footage of the shark. Liz’s photo is too far away, but when zoomed in, it does look like the fin is rounded. Our video footage, it just looks blue against a blue back ground!
The thing is, in hindsight, the shark was present the whole time whilst on the wreck. The bait ball of fish which followed us around the wreck should’ve given us a hint that there was a shark close by, but neither of us thought anything of the bait ball, we just assumed there was a tuna or something lurking.
And it just so happens, that the following day, we had a grey reef shark on the Aikoko. It appeared just as we were about to make our ascend up the shot.
Chunky had just speared a fish, and the shark was on him in an instant. Liz shouted at Chunky through her reg, where he spun round in time to see the shark. The shark retreated, but continued to hang around.
We had a 26 minute deco stop with this shark circling us, both from below and level with us. Chunky had speared 2 fish during the dive. He released the dead Trevally which then floated above our heads on the surface. Apo (our boat handler) got a stick and managed to bring the fish close enough to the boat for him to pick it up.
However, Chunky still had a dying fish in his BCD pocket. You could actually see it’s flicking tail sticking out! We did not feel threatened by this sharks presence. It was more interested in Chunky than us. And Chunky had his spear gun ready (just in case things got nasty). But the shark was only being curious, and showed no signs of aggression.
We had noted the lack of Eagle rays. We saw zero eagle rays, and only a few sting rays. The life on the wrecks on this visit seemed much more active than I remember. There is so much life on these wrecks.
We were disappointed to be told by Chunky that the Kensho Maru no longer had a Bridge. It had been ripped off by the Odyssey after they shotted the Bridge, and the sea was rough enough to rip it off. We’re now not sure about this fact, as our last dive of the trip was spent on the deck of the Kensho and the bridge was there! Perhaps he got confused with the Kiyosumi??
We’re not sure whether the increase in shark activity was shear coincidence, or whether it had something to do with Chunky spear fishing! Probably both, as he was only spear fishing from the night dive onwards, which was during our 2nd week.
We had noted, that the dive groups present this time round didn’t interact with one another. We all remembered from the first trip, and all the groups got on well together, and were solialising together at the bar and communal balcony. It was very disappointing to see that no-one interacted the same as before, apart from the last group to arrive, which was a group from the west coast, America. They were on the same return flight from Truk as us. They arrived on the island only for 5 days diving, after spending a week on the Aggressor liveaboard, Palau.
Once we were all checked in at Chuuk airport, Donnie (one of the American’s) said he was heading to the cafe next door to the airport, and he invited us along. It was so nice, as the cafe had air-con, which the airport doesn’t. I felt so uncomfortable at the airport, I could feel the sweat dripping down the back of my legs! Yuck!
We spent a good hour or so in the cafe, killing time while we waited for our flight to be called. This is such a good idea, I’ll remember that for the next time. It’s much more comfortable than spending 3 hrs in the hot and clammy airport.
We had another 14 hrs in Manila on the return journey. We had booked into a different hotel, Heritage Hotel. The hotel was lovely, very plush. There was no transfer though. We had to make our way to the hotel lounge at the airport and call for a taxi. They sent a van and charged us approx. £25! What a rip off.
The hotel was very nice, with towels, and hot running water! We had a drink in the bar, and thought it would be an idea to find a bar nearby.
We walked the streets of down-town Manila at night. The place had a pungant smell of mixed stale and fresh p**s. Liz was nearly sick and started wreching. We made our way across the walk-way to the other side of the road where we saw a karaoke bar. It turned out to be a brothel! The fact that it was next door to a place called ‘Cotton Girls’ should have been a give away when you think about it. After witnessing women throwing themselves at our husbands, the four of us made an informed decision to head back to the safety of the hotel, where the drinks were not as expensive as we expected.
We had a good sleep, showered and changed our clothes to our “UK” clothes for the return journey. Back to the havoc of Manila departures.
Would I go back? To Truk definitely. Wild horses couldn’t stop me! In fact, none of us wanted to leave, and I actually cried after my last dive! I felt really emotional.
Manila? No. I’ve read reports from various people to try and avoid travelling through Manila if you can. If we were to go back to Manila, we’d prefer to stay at the Manila Airport Hotel rather than the plush Heritage Hotel. The Manila Airport was adequate for our needs.
Overall, I loved this holiday. Truk is by far one of my favourite places, and after 2 trips, there are still wrecks that we have yet to do. Some are deeper than I would like, too deep for compressed air diving (it costs approx. $350 for ONE trimix dive from BLDS). Plus I’m not trimix trained yet (that day will come).
Truk is the only place I’ve been where I feel completely relaxed. In fact, we’d be watching the news on the TV at the Sunset Bar, and I’d think “oh yeah, I forgot all that crap is going on in the “outside” world”.
It is quite hard to describe, but it really does feel like you are in a bubble, far far away from the goings on in the “outside world.
I’d recommend this destination to anyone. Even if you are not a “wrekkie”, you’d still enjoy the marine growth on the artificial reefs made by the wrecks. I’m not exactly what you’d call a “wrekkie” but I enjoy diving the wrecks of Truk. I like that I’m diving a piece of history.
For the 2nd time, we did the land based option. We stayed at the Blue Lagoon Resort. There is also another land based option, Truk Stop. I believe there is another hotel, but I don’t know the name.
There is also the liveaboard options, Odyssey and Thorfinn. The Odyssey was busy, and had a constant stream of divers, as they dock at the BLDS while waiting to get on, and there transfer to and from the airport is operated by the Blue Lagoon Resort I believe (I could be wrong).