Chuuk & Palau

Chuuk (Truk) and Palau – Diary of a Tadpole Rebreather diver.
By David Bewick
Reproduced by kind permission of David Bewick



This is a quick and dirty trip report, half written for the club mag, so not all the names will be familiar, and some of the rebreather stuff is Mickey Mouse. It has ended up being a bit long, so I have put a short summary at the end.

I need a drink and an early night - got in from Heathrow 4 hours ago and don't even know which month it is, let alone the time of day.

Cheers - David

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Pre 11 March 2005

So, Tim Camp and Mark Crawford had the idea of diving Micronesia. The arguments went something like – we both want to do it sometime, it will be expensive whenever, the dollar is weak, that’s enough of an excuse to do it now!

They sorted out a very good deal for the trip and then kindly floated the idea to a few select friends, and had their hands bitten off in the rush, so on 11 March 17 divers rendezvoused at Heathrow terminal 1 for a diving trip of a lifetime. We were to fly first to Truk Lagoon (now known as Chuuk) for 6-7 days on a liveaboard, the Thorfinn, and then travel on to Palau for 6 days hotel based diving. Chuuk for wrecks and Palau for big palagics.

Clare and I had decided some 18 months ago that we wanted rebreathers. We visited the Ambient Pressure stand at the 2003 dive show to check whether Clare would fall over wearing an Inspiration. Although she thought it worth a try, we fell in love/lust with the prototype Evolution, which weighs in at 20kg rather than 30kg for the classic original. It seems a long time ago now, but we were told that it should be into production early 2004, so we decided to wait. Over the next 12 months, this became a bit trying as the production date slipped again and again. We were on open circuit for the trip last summer, which was disappointing, and started to worry that we would still be blowing bubbles as the Chuuk trip came round. To reduce risk we qualified on Inspirations in very early January, so that we could have a reasonable amount of experience before the trip. As the date got closer and closer, and the Evolution release date remained vague, we arranged to borrow a couple of Inspirations just in case, one from our instructor and the other direct from AP.

Two rebreathers equals 4 cylinders, 3 of which were out of date for test when I got them a week before the trip. Our long-term friend and cylinder tester, Peter Frost (Dive Barracuda) sorted that out, and took the 4th cylinder’s value out, as the states demands that all cylinders travel this way.

The other challenge was to get some CO2 absorbent (Sofnolime or “lime”) out to the dive sites. We worked out that we would need 60kg for the 12 days diving, which I didn’t want to carry on the plane. This proved impossible to arrange for a reasonable price, so we carried it ourselves after all. Carrying 3 tubs of a white crystalline substance through the was a little worrying, so a great deal of effort went in to making sure this was as smooth an operation as possible. We were flying BA from Heathrow to LA, and then Continental for the LA/Hawaii/Guam/Truk legs. Continental’s website actually listed “lime” as an OK thing for checked in luggage, especially as the manufacturers provide a letter confirming that it is safe for air transport, however BA didn’t mention anything about it, so I started a 3 month process to sort this out. In brief summary I phoned customer service, and after about 30 minutes checking the helpful agent confirmed with the BA service department were happy. Being a pessimist, I asked for e-mail or fax confirmation, which proved impossible. I later repeated the exercise as was told I would need to fax them the Data Sheet, letter stating it was safe, and do that through our group leader (Mark). Again, no confirmation could be sent out, but they did agree that a note could be placed on the booking reference. So all set – or so we thought.


Friday 11 March 05
To Los Angeles

Picked up Graham and Julie and headed down the M1 with a full Discovery. They had managed to pack everything into 3 cases, so were able to host one of our extras. For those not familiar with baggage rules, if you fly via the states you get an allowance of 2 bags of up to 32kgs each. Flying the other way round the world, you get 20kgs full stop. Each rebreather in a box was 30 kgs, and that’s carrying the electronics in hand baggage. Each tub of “lime” is a 21kg bag, and we has one suitcase for everything else (2 underwater housings, spares, chargers, torches - oh and some clothes), so 6 bags in all. In the end, we managed to farm out some of this to other members of the group, and put one of the “lime” tubs in a large grip, so that we could put in some clothes with that. The first hurdle was the off site parking company, who were worried about carrying the “lime” tubs from the car park to the airport, not one I had even thought of, but overcome with a little gentle persuasion.

Welcome, if a little surprising, the BA check in did have the note about the “lime” and sent me on my way rejoicing to the baggage x-ray, with 2 tubs and the 2 rebreather boxes, all with baggage labels attached. The third tub in its own bag went straight through, without needing an x-ray. There was then an interesting discussion on written English comprehension skills as the senior baggage handler felt that the sentence “...are therefore not restricted for transport” translated as “not allowed for transport”. The (thankfully fairly short discussion seems to stem from the fact that the sentence had the words ‘restricted’, ‘not’ and ‘transport’ in it). Still, we were through with only a mind numbingly boring 11-hour flight between us and an overnight hotel room in LA.


Saturday 12 Mar 2005

After a reasonably short time we had shuttled to the hotel, slept for 8+ hours and returned to LA airport for the next check in. As a number of the group had brought ponies, and we had the dreaded “lime” tubs, almost everyone ended up going through the x-ray process. This was run in a cheerful and efficient manner. One of our Kowalski torches was picked up and we were asked to remove the batteries, as this is impossible, we offered to carry it as hand luggage, which was fine. My bigger video flood got through undetected. One of our group hadn’t removed his valve, so Graham borrowed a couple of large spanners and we did it there and then. And then there was the “lime”. The private company contracted to do the screening were content that the tubs were not explosive, but as they have a HAZMAT sticker, they needed to get and airline rep down. He duly arrived and did his best to be helpful. I pointed out the letter (stuck to the tubs) stating that they were safe to fly, and mentioning that his airline’s website also stated that they were cleared for checked baggage. He headed off for a while and then asked me to go with him to the “back room” to chat. He has the website up, but hadn’t found the reference, it was a matter of minutes to find this for him, and then a great deal of printing, highlighting and signing went on, and we were all cleared for flight, including the “lime”. To this guy’s credit, he then took the on-duty x-ray team through the documentation, which might make the process a little easier for the next chap. Morel of the story – it’s a good idea to get to the airport with plenty of time to spare.


Monday 14 March 2005 – First Dive!
LA – Hawaii, Hawaii – Guam, Guam – Truk.

All pretty boring and long. Lost a day courtesy of the International Date Line. We were a bit delayed into Guam, which combined with bad weather on the last leg to get us into Truk late. By the time we had been met, taken to the Thorfinn by boat and given the welcoming brief it was after midnight. Clare & I then put the rebreathers together and pressure checked them before crawling off to bed about 2am. Wasn’t sure if we would make the first dive at 0800, but a combination of jet lag and enthusiasm had us in the water on time. We treated this as a check dive, no cameras and nothing adventurous. Chuuk = wrecks. This one was the Heian Maru. (For future reference “Maru” means “ship of commerce”, wrecks without this in the name tend to be warships.) The Heian is on its port side and fairly intact. We popped into the large and open engine room, where the vis was good until 7 of us had finned through it. Part of the Heian’s cargo was Japanese torpedoes, which litter one of the holds in a jumble. The rebreathers behaved well, not having suffered any ill effects from their travels. As this was the first time with rebreathers in wet suits and salt water, getting the weighting right was a priority. I started with 2 kgs in the top and 3kgs each side, which turned out to be a bit heavy. Finally settled on 3 kg top and nothing on the sides, which was a pleasant surprise.

Second dive of the day was the Yamagiri Maru, again on its side and reasonable intact. (That is, in UK wreck diving terms, she was fit to float and steam off into the distance!). We had a very pretty swim one deck below the maindeck, lots of light and ‘atmosphere’. Cameras (my video and Clare’s still) checked out and working. Saw several bits of ordinance and then over the stern to find an intact screw and rudder.

The way Thorfinn runs its diving boats is to assign divers to port or starboard. Six divers head off in boats from each side to separate wrecks; then a second boat with four divers follows some 20 minutes later, to the same sites. So you end up with two waves of divers on two wrecks. This does mean you don’t feel crowded.

With up to five dives available, four-day dives at 8, 11, 2 and 5, and a night dive at 8:30; you can spend a lot of time underwater. As rebreather divers, our endurance was limited by oxygen exposure, which at 1.3 ppO2 is 3 hours a day for continuous diving. In general 45 minutes is a good length of time for most of the dives, so we budgeted on doing 4 dives a day, usually dropping the set point to 0.7 for the last dive, which tended to be shallow. We also go in the habit of dropping down to the low setpoint for the Thorfinn’s regime of safety stops. They are justly proud of the fact that they have been decompression incident free for 18 years or so. For any dive shallower than 30m it’s a mandatory 5 minutes at 5m, with no planned decompression. For deeper dives it is again a no stop diving policy with 2 micro bubble stops of 2@18 and 3@9, followed by 10 minutes at 5m. Using VR3’s we found our required micro bubble stops were slightly deeper and shorter than this, but all of the shallow stop was safety rather than mandatory.

So back to the diving, the 3rd of the day was the Rio de Janerio Maru, again on its side with cathedral like swim throughs and a gun on the stern. The last dive of the day for us was very different being the wreck of a four engined sea plane, upside down, and in 3 bits. It was very strange to see the engines and props still on the wings after 60 years.


Tuesday 15 March 2005

Tuesday was far less rushed, and the 4 dives we did were all good. The morning’s two were the Unkai Maru and the Sakisan Maru, both upright for a change and with a good selection of soft corels and anemones. After lunch we dove our 3rd upright wreck of the day, the Kansho Maru, spending a bit of time in the engine room and the rest of the dive on the bow section. Clare and I then skipped the last day dive, so that we could do the Sutsuki, a Japanese destroyer, as a night dive. Fish life is a bit disappointing in general, with very few adults about, however, the night dive did have a few more fish than the day, including a very co-operative giant puffer.


Wednesday 16 March 2005

A very interesting and enjoyable days diving. The first wreck, the Hoki Maru, still has road-building machinery in the after hold, and a truly awesome rudder and twin screw, although the port one is under the silt. The second, the Kiyosumi Maru, has an open engine room, although the lower, less travelled areas were thick with rust suspension; and a short but interesting penetration in the forepeak, where you find a storeroom filled with ship’s lanterns.

This is a good example of what makes Chuuk special. Being an island with strict customs officials, and an even stricter “take only photos” policy, means that these wrecks are still filled with bits and pieces, from small arms ammunition, cups, torpedoes, gauges in aircraft and gas masks to name a few.

The third dive of the day was hailed as the best wreck in Chuuk. The Fugikawa Maru lies in 34m, is upright and intact, and has 3 Zero fuselages in hold 2. Our guide offered to take us through the engine room, which turned into a 30 meter penetration down 3 levels to visit the switchboard, engine room telegraph and store room. Even the ladder railings are intact, so it really is a special wreck. We then finished our days diving with a poddle round a harbour tug, the Eisen. Clare wanted some unrushed time to play with camera settings, so this was a good opportunity to do so.

Fatigue hit the group fairly hard in the evening. With only a few hardy individuals out of bed at 21:30! We stripped the rebreathers down for a midweek disinfectant treatment. I also changed one of the batteries in mine as I had had an intermittent Low Battery alarm on the last dive, linked to when the current drain was highest, firing the oxygen solenoid. For anyone reading this as an equally new rebreather diver, the warning cleared after a single beep, and didn’t repeat for some 5 solenoid activations. I was quite pleased with myself for working out what the problem probably was, and then remaining eyes glued to my handset until the warning came back again and I could confirm it as Low Battery.


Thursday 17 March 2005

After the early night most of the group were up bright and early. Our diving tender suffered a steering gear failure on the way to the first site, which resulted in an hour’s delay, and the cancellation of the second morning dive. Once repaired the transit out was quite uncomfortable. The boats are aluminium dories with flat bottoms, so going into a short steep chop results in a lot of slamming. Once underwater everything was far more comfortable, and a gentle swim around the Seiko Maru ensued. Top items of note were the officer’s wardroom, complete with Japanese baths, and a veritable garden of Anemones and soft corals on the bow. The next dive was a return to the Fujikawa, where I was able to take Clare back to the engine room telegraph, as she missed it first time round. The fish life was more prolific this time, with a cooperative Emperor Angel playing in the screw’s ‘A’ bracket, and the biggest and most mobile nudibranch on the screw itself. It was about 4 inches line, black with dark blue trimming, and I can’t find it in any of our fish spotting books. This almost certainly means I need a new book rather than having discovered a new species. The last dive of the day, on the Gosei Maru, was personally disappointing. My mask leaked so much that I swapped to my spare, which then fogged up for the rest of the dive. I can’t remember the last time I didn’t enjoy myself underwater, so this was a good lesson. The transit back was long, bumpy and very wet, so I crossed myself off the night dive, grabbed a beer, and relaxed in the spa. (Sorry, had I mentioned that the deck aft of the main cabin on the Thorfinn has an 8 person salt water spa?)


Friday 18 March 2005

What a way to start the day. Although the Fujikama is highly rated, I would put two other wrecks above her on my own list. The first was the Nippo Maru. Upright in 50m, this wreck is in more open water, so has better visibility. Deck cargo included a little tank that reminded me of Lt Grubber’s one from “Allo Allo” and some US wheeled howitzers, presumably captured earlier in the war. The bridge telegraphs are set at “Engines Not Required”. Clare and I were able to slowly cover the whole ship from bow to stern, whilst the others did about 2/3rd of it; we then met up with them doing their stops, with our computers clearing before theirs did! Rebreathers rule OK. Then it was back to the Heian for the second dive, this time with cameras. The third dive of the day didn’t happen for me, my unit had a cell warning just before entry, so I sat the dive out. (OK, so rebreathers don’t rule all the time). After a cell change, the last dive of the day was on the only wreck not sunk in WW II. The “Micro Trader” was scuttled last year near the Fujikama. As yet there is very little life on the wreck, but it was an interesting change to dive a modern wreck, complete with radar, a modern bridge and lots of white paint. However, it was not worth travelling around the world for.


Saturday 19 March 2005

So we come to my other top wreck, the San Francisco Maru. This one is a bit deep for some, with the bottom of the holds about 58m and the seabed 60m. I restrained myself to 51m, it was going to be 50m, but I needed a video shot of a solid wall of sea mines stacked in hold one. Again, Lt Grubber had been careless, leaving no less than 3 little tanks on the upperdeck. The sea mines in the hold were accompanied by their anchor wires and a whole stack of chemical horns. (The sticky out things you see on old war movies and also in the shark scene in “Finding Nemo”) There is also a large amount of other ammunition. Visibility was some of the best of the week. The rest of the day was spent revisiting the Heian Maru and Sutsuki, plus the chance for me to dive the Yubae Maru, which I had missed the day before due to the O2 cell failure.

Clare had missed this day’s diving due to a stomach bug, which I started to suffer from in the evening. So we both missed the final night bar-b-que and local dance demonstration.


Sunday 20 March 2005

Wash and pack kit day, whilst the majority of the team got a last couple of dives in. These were not normally part of the package as most guests fly out Sunday night or Monday. But the Thorfinn added them on for us as we were not due to fly until Tuesday. Accounts were settled, which involved a little discussion on my part. Due to the skipper not being on board at the start, the only quote for oxygen we had been giving was $18 for a 32% mix in a 12lt cylinder. This is a bit expensive relative to the UK, but reasonable considering the location. I worked out we would use about this volume of O2 a day between the two of us. On the last day I was quotes $79 a fill for a 3lt 100%, due to low pressures available we had had about 4 fills a day (between us both). 22 x $79 = $1738! The value was calculated as $8 for a 3lt 32% and then 79c for every 1% over that. Various discounts were agreed over the next hour or so; halved as the maximum fill had been 120 bar verse 200bar and reduced again to $25 when I pointed out that we returned the cylinders with 50-80bar in them. I was then told that we had had 10 fills so that would be $250. (I decided natural justice had dropped the 22 fills we had had, to 10 at a silly price, so rolled over and got the card out.) We were landed in the afternoon to the “Truk Stop” hotel to degas and relax. Truk is not much of a holiday hot spot, but for those of us a little under the weather, it was a well-timed break.


Monday 21 March 2005

A video editing and flop day, although some of the team went on a “Land Tour” to see the WWII Japanese HQ, Gun Cave and a walk to an old lighthouse. A few frequented the local internet café, to discover a single 56k dial up line serving a hub with 8 users – a bit slow.


Tuesday 22 March 2005

There is only one flight out of Chuuk on a Tuesday, ours at 1545. The advice from the hotel was to check the baggage in at 1100, and then return to the hotel for lunch, which we did. The “lime” got through in the fastest time yet, with only a 3 minute back office discussion before clearing it. All our travelling worries were over – or were they?

On arrival in Guam, with our luggage checked through to Palau, we were required to check through immigration, then walk 50 meters to leave the USA again, surrendering the bottom halves of our visa waivers. Then through security, which is run by TSA (Transport Safety Administration). At the x-ray four of us with Kowalski torches were pulled up and told they were not permitted on the flight. We were told that the batteries had to be removed, this is impossible. TSA in LA had asked us to carry them in hand luggage, as they were not permitted in checked luggage. We offered to remove the bulbs as the problem was the fire hazard an accidentally turned on torch could cause. To the best of our knowledge as I write this; this is not laid down anywhere in the baggage rules we had access to. Removing the bulbs is not great for the torches, but better than losing them. However, you need a very small allan key to do it, which we didn’t think we had. Luckily Andy Mac had got one and we got through. I then helped another diver from another group, who had borrowed a Kowalski from a friend for the trip. We await with baited breath to see if the 3 other torches owned by the group, currently in checked luggage, get picked up or not. (P.S. they did) Clare is going to check the aircraft accident database for any torch related fires when we get back; we have a sneaky suspicion that there won’t be any.


Wednesday 23 March 2005

Another island, another dive. Palau exceeded expectations from the first minute. The organisation of the hotel and dive centre (Fish’n’Fins) was slick and friendly. We were a big enough group for Jackie, the F’n’F’s accountant/deputy manager, to come diving with us each day, just to make sure everything ran smoothly. The plan was to do 2 dives a day, with some additional dives/activities towards the end of the weeks diving. Day one was the Big Drop Off and New Drop Off, with a packed lunch on an idyllic beach during the surface interval. The sites are about an hour from base, with the dive boats doing about 30kts there and back. I don’t think I have ever seen so many fish, both individuals and schools. Visibility was pretty good and the units behaved well after there short trip from Chuuk; with one exception. Clare could not get either a positive or negative pressure test. We stripped all the hoses down, checked visually and re-lubricated all the joints with no success. The only way we could find the leak was to do a positive test underwater. For this Clare hooked onto a rock in about 5m, filled the counter-lungs and went onto bailout. It took all of 3 seconds to see that her exhale counterlung was leaking somewhere within the outer cover, below the level of the T piece. This was not something either of us felt able to tackle in the field. There was no visable leak in normal operation, and the counterlung only collected about 2 inches of water over an hours dive. So – Clare continued to dive the unit for the rest of the week, with me doing extra leak tests during each dive to make sure this didn’t get any worse. (Asbestos suit on for those Rebreather divers who feel strongly about this!)


Thursday 24 – Monday 29 March 2005

Got behind on the paperwork and decided to summarise the rest of the diving in Palau. All the sites were good; most involving reef walls with the odd cavern thrown in. Lots (and I mean lots) of big shoals of fish, almost a turtle a dive, sharks (Grey Reef and White Tip), Neapolitan wrasse and morays. A few dives had moments of “hooking on”, where the whole team set their reef hook in moderate current in order to watch the shark and shoal action at the top of the reef. One dive advertised as a strong current, had us struggling to cope in about 4 kts of gusty current. Great fun, but those on open circuit used a bit more air than usual in the inevitable free flows. Another strong current dive did not involve hooking on in the stream, but was an exhilarating drift down Ulong Channel, one of the fastest I’ve done. Two dives that differed from the norm were a proper cave dive in Chandelier Cave, four air pockets, good vis and lots of stalactites. The second was a snorkel rather than dive in Jellyfish lake. This is a marine lake topped up with stingless Jellyfish, who have got that way due to a lack of predators and a sufficient length of time for a bit of evolution. You are encouraged to have this experience sans wetsuits, so as to fully experience the unique tactile aspects of the event. I now have some reasonable video footage of Clare surrounded and “interacting” with dozens of the little chaps. The sizes ranged from a couple of centimetres across the “bell” to about 15cm for the biggest. Over the day the whole lot of them trace out a 1 km track round the lake, which avoids shadows, allowing their hosted photosynthesising algae to do their bit for symbiosis. Not bad for an animal with no brain and 8 eyes.

Being land based there was life after diving; food in Palau was varied, reasonably priced and very good quality. We ate in the best Indian restaurant I’ve been in, a reasonable Italian and a great Jamaican restaurant in the gift shop of the local museum! The chef at the latter is also an excellent wood carver, and I managing to hint strongly enough for Clare to buy me my “big 4-0” birthday present there. (Very good carving of a White Tip Shark swimming over the reef top.)


Tuesday 29 March, 30 March, 29 March (again), 30 March (again), 31 March 2005

The long trip back. This was the same 4 hops in reverse, without an overnight stay in LA. About 40 hours all together and pretty boring. However, the Kowalski saga continued. I had taken the opportunity of browsing the TSA website after our frustrating Guam experience. Imagine my surprise to find no mention of torches or flashlights (or even batteries). I did learn that TSA will allow round headed scissors, knitting needles and safety razors in carry on baggage, but nothing at all about removing batteries/bulbs from torches. Armed with printouts from the website I was loaded for bear and itching for a rematch with the “little Hitler of Guam”. The rest of our team asked to go through security first to avoid the potential flashback. We all discharged the torches, but left them intact as normal. Palau didn’t even blink, Guam were happy they weren’t a fire hazard as soon as I showed them the switch lock, Honolulu only checked Clare’s because they could see mine was the same thing only bigger, and LA just checked what they were, and again had no concerns about flammability. I shall now have to vent my spleen via an e-mail to TSA, although I shall try and be constructive and suggest guidance they can publish to passengers and their staff alike. I think something like “Sealed unit flashlights, incorporating rechargeable batteries, should be discharged to a minimum level, and be fitted with a switch lock to prevent inadvertent activation during transit. They can be carried in both checked and hand luggage” (Comments welcomed before I go to print).

So that’s the trip – 12 ½ days diving over 3 weeks door to door. Executive summary as follows:

• Chuuk’s wrecks are very intact, full of artefacts and numerous, but a long way to go for them alone. Visibility was not that great, but penetration and diving intensity was better than expected.
• I would not consider Thorfinn to be particularly rebreather friendly, but they are going into refit shortly, which will include the fitting of a O2 booster, so this should change.
• Palau was brilliant – I want to go straight back. Fish’N’Fins very Inspiration friendly – they sell ‘lime’ ( 3 x UK price) and have 8 Inspiration cylinders for hire.
• Took lots of spares, used 1 of 3 O2 cells, no ‘O’ rings and all 5 Rebreather batteries. (Next time I’ll take 3 times the batteries that I think I’ll need)
• In clear warm water I felt comfortable diving to 50m on an air diluent.
• A small leak in the exhale counterlung does not (in my opinion) mean that using the unit on a no-stop dive is out of the question.
• Security at airports is important - but some US stuff is a bit ridicules.
• Just got home after a 40 hour trip, so please forgive spelling/grammar errors.

Images from this trip can be found at www.bewick.org

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