World War II WRecks, Gulf of Thailand - March 2008

smartecosse

Hi Guys

Am planning a trip in the Gulf of Thailand for 6 Days 6 Nights diving World War II wrecks in the 55 t0 70 meter range from the 16th March 2008 for 6 days 6 nights.

The trip will be aboard the Trident, with Jamie and Stu, the team that found the USS Lagarto sub as well as numerous other pristine World War II wrecks in the Gulf of Thailand.

For those that don't know the Trident is a full tech liveaboard with onboard trimix blending and O2 to 200 Bar - perfect for those with rebreathers

The cost of the trip (departing from Koh Tao) is 55,000 baht per diver and includes all food, twin sets, stage bottles and air. Helium for those requiring it is 3 baht per litre and the O2 cost is simply shared out amongst the group and is negligible.

The itinerary will be the "Hammerhead" trip that has already proved extremely popular. This submarine sank four maru’s in the Gulf of Siam and we’ll be diving three of them on this trip. The last one, Kinrei Maru, has yet to be found.

After an easy over-night journey from Koh Tao, the first day’s diving will be on Nanmei No 5 Maru, an oil tanker sitting upright , then only a two mile run the next day to Sakura Maru a real hodgepodge of a bulk carrier/tanker also upright.

The next two or three days will be spent on the Tottori Maru, a 5,900 ton passenger cargo ship lying on her starboard side another six miles from the last wreck. her sister is ship pictured above. This ship had a terrible history, she was used to transport thousands of POWs in apalling conditions.

All three appear to have been torpedoed in the bow. Depths between 57m - 70m.

We’ll also have a day’s or two’s exploratory diving on some nearby un-dived marks.

If you like WW2 maru’s , this is the trip for you.This is a perfect trip to earn your Trimix certification on to and the additional cost for this is 36,000 baht inc all gas required for the course.

For those on rebreathers Trident can have all the sorb that you require waiting on the boat for you and with O2 to 200 bar you will be well catered for

Anyone looking to join the trip please pm me or email me as spaces are limited to 10 divers in total.

smartecosse

Quick Update

Two spots are now gone leaving 8 left for this trip.

Also Dive The World have agreed to help out with promoting the trip and it is now featured on their blog here. The good thing about this means that if you need to pay by credit card this is now possible and there are no additional charges for doing so. The prices remain exactly the same.

Lancer4545

Hi,

I have been diving with Charles the last couple of days and he has got me thinking I should come along on this trip....

Are there any spots available?

Regards,

Lance

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Gilles

If it were not for this "working for a living" thing....

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Gilles
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smartecosse

yeah its horrible isn't it ...........

anyway guys 4 spots left

Lancer4545

I've just returned back home in Oz after a week in Thailand diving with the boys on MV Trident and thought I'd put up a short note to let you know how it all went.

Stuey and I had decided to Buddy up on this trip back in January when we met on my last trip to Thailand. There was no way I was going to let him have all the fun on his own!!

The trip was centered around War Patrol 6 &7 of the submarine USS Hammerhead whilst on prowl in the gulf of Thailand looking for enemy shipping. During the course of these patrols the Hammerhead intercepted and sank 4 Maru's. 3 of which we were going to dive, starting with the 2 smaller ships both being around 1000 tons the Sakura Maru and the Nanmei Maru which were both dived for one day each followed by the Tottori Maru, the infamous "Hell Ship.

The Tottori is a fantastic dive and is massive compared to the previous 2 wrecks we had dived earlier being around 6000 tons . As you can imagine after 60 years sitting at the bottom it has deteriated somewhat but is still mostly intact and is easy to enter and look around. The wreck is so big and there are so many things to check out, that after 6 dives over a 3 day period I felt as tho we had only just started to feel our way around it. (considering on one of the eary dives we got lost and separated, leading to me doing a "Bluewater" ascent on the bag and reel and Stuey finding the downline.....alone)

I don't think there was one person aboard who really wanted to leave the Tottori but having just got some new marks from a local fisherman who came over to see what we were up to, we headed in the general direction of home. Not long after leaving we closed in on the first mark and found a nice return on the sounder. Jamie dived it whilst we all anxiously waited for him to return and tell us what he had found. But soon after descending with the down line it went slack and it was obvious it was not a good mark. When he returned he said it was a pile of steel and junk so we set off to the next mark a couple of hours away.

Stuart did the honours this time and had the down line secured and we all waited anxiously yet again. This time we hit the jack pot, it turned out to be the "Seacrest" a drilling ship lost in a hurricane in 1989 and was huge. Unfortunately Stuey and I didn't get to dive her as I had trouble equalising and we had to call the dive but the guys who did dive her said it was awesome. It's lying on the bottom fully inverted resting on the forward bridge and aftercastle. The work deck is accessable as the gunwhales there are slightly lower than those on the rest of the ship. So you swim down to the bottom and then up inside and around the work deck. A few of the guys found their way to the "Moon Pool" where the drill would have gone and swam through it to the upturned keel.

All up I really enjoyed the trip and am looking forward to heading over again, this time to dive the submarine USS Lagarto and a few more wrecks not far from her.


Lance

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silent running

Thanks for the report and pics Lance, Trident is near the top of my to do list. How was the food? I do love the idea of eating Thai AND getting to do great CCR wreck diving everyday, never had both at the same time... -Andy

Lancer4545

Hi Andy,

There is plenty of room on the boat and the boys have made good use of the space.

We had a cook on board, Micky who is also a diver and instructor. I have to say he kept us well fed and there was very little in the way of left overs.

As for breakfast, I usually had mine cold as I was in the water before it was ready but he always had some put aside for me to pick through at lunch time when I got back from the dive.

Lance

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__________________
You can run but you can't hide!

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Bobmac

Thanks for the photos Lance. I'm diving with them the second week of April and can't wait. This is just the pick me up I needed.
Cheers

andibk

Been living here going on 14 years and never made it on the Trident yet. Looks like I will get my first oportunity towards the end of May. I have heard he runs some excellent trips. Should be a blast.

andibk