The last dive of that amazing vacation we did at EMILY – Kawanishi Flying Boat. She is called the “Flying Porcupine”, because she was armed with five 20mm cannons and four machine guns, plus she could carry two torpedoes and either eight 240kg bombs or 16 60kg bombs. This formidabel aponoment could also cruise at 334kph for 4500 nautical miles (8350km). She had selfceiling fuel tanks and a fireextinguisher system. This plane was heading east from Palau to the Dublon Island Sea Plane Base with several high ranking Janpanese officers on board. Mid-flight she was ambushed by American fighters who shot her up, killing many of those on board, including the co-pilot. But she lost the Americans in the clouds and managed to limp back to the Truk Lagoon. After crashlanding she sank, but the rest of the crea was saved.

Today we started a bit earlier, however we still arrived at the diveboat just ion time. Well, it wouldn’t matter if we were late – there’s just one other diver, so they would wait for sure.

After the pumpy trip – we arrived totally wet, we went down for the first dive. SHINKOKU MARU, 152m. The 10,102 ton Naval Tanker was built in 1940 and was one of eight tankers refueling the ships used for the japanese attack on pearl harbor. In august 1942 a US submarine torpedoed her, but the damage was minor enough for repairs. In july 1943 she was torpedoed again, but was repaired in just five weeks. She met her final match on February 17, 1944 when a Dauntless dive bomber from the USS Yorktown CV10 hit her amidships, and then the next morning she was torpedoed by Grumman Avengers which opened a huge hole into her engine room. At last she went down. To the divesite: It is known as one of Chuuks best dives and a must-do for divers. She was sunk upright with a hole in her aft port side. Her superstructure is just 12m deep and her deck 18m. The deepest point of the ship is at 38m. Through the bomb hole some rooms are accesible, like the engine room, crew quarters, rudder and rudder engine. In the top of the ship you can also dive inside and see the galley with dishes, stove top and utensils. Moreover the bridge with wheelhouse, engine telegraph, sick bay – where daddy was lying in, and operating table – which we haven’t seen of course are also accessible and easily dived. The bow gun and most exposed structures are completely encrusted with colourful corals and sponges. They are also sourrounded by lots of little fish.

After the dive we went snorkeling again. That time we went to HINO MARU No.2 (aka Dai Na Hino Maru, or One Boat Gun), 66m. 998ton Naval Miscellaneous Auxillery Ship. She began her life as a small Transport in 1936, then was converted to a Gunboat in 1942, and finally was made into an Auxiliary Ship in 1943. She showed up in Truk Lagoon after Operation Hailstone, but was sunk in shallow water after numerous strafing attacks that set her afire, and bombings on April 29, 1944. The small Cargo Ship was the unofficial “Symbol of Truk Lagoon” with its photogenic bow gun in just a few meters deep. The location is just offshore west of Uman Island in 1 to 12m deep. The frighter was blown inside out by two bombs midships, so other than the bow little is recognizable.

For the second dive we went to SANKISAN MARU, 113m. The 4,776ton Army Cargo Ship origins are a mistery, although it is said that she was originally called the Red Hook, and was an American vessel doing Northwest trade duringthe depression. Captured by the Japanese in 1942, she arrived in Truk on February 12, 1944. The ship was bombed on both February 17th and 18th, and it appears that the cargo of munitions was either struck by a bomb directly, or reached by a fire. Nevertheless it resulted in a tremendous explosion, fragmenting the entire midship superstructure and flinging the whole stern section into deeper water. The wreck lies in a depht from 15m to 24m. It has some soft corals and other marine growth. The masts are rising toward the surface. In the ship are tons of monition. Daddy and I wanted to take a little “Patrone” with us, but we didn’t dare. There are also lots of carwheels and some “Lenkräder”. For the pictures I acted like I was driving while sitting on a small motor, which had a wheel on each side, and holding a “Lenkrad”.

Then we rested again till 3pm in the rooms. I was writing the entry about the day before and Daddy way sleeping. At three we went to the diveshop. Paul was already awaiting us and “Ferl2″ and the diveguide came shortly after us.

The third dive we did at KIYOSUMI MARU, 87m. The 8,614ton Passenger-Cargo Ship was built in 1934 and providedservice to New York from Kobe, Japan. In 1941 she was converted into an armed oxiliary cruiser, with eight antiaircraftguns and a pair of tornado launchers. US Submarine Balao attacked Kiyosumi Maru with a half dozen torpedoes, three of which nailed her, but she didn’t go down. A sister cruiser Oyoto towed her to Truk Lagoon, where she was being repaired at the time of Operation Hailstone. Douglas dive bombers from USS Yorktown CV10 and USS Enterprise did her in. 43 crewmen died in the attacks. The wreck lies in a depth from 30 to 14m. It lies on its portside. The foreship has been blown up by a torpedo. The bridge and the structure has been bombed. In the torpedo hole, which is huge, are many corals, also black corals, which transformes the sad sight into a beatiful magical area. The engine room is wide open with catwalks and massive engine cylinders, but not easily accessible – we just saw it from the outside. The ship was really huge. I felt a bit sad, thinking about how many people died there and now we are swimming through their grave.

Today we got up at 7.45 am and at 8.15 we were at the breakfast, however, the waiters or the chefs were still sleepy so we got the breakfast at 8.45. That means only 15 minutes left to diving. So after some bites we ran back to the room, graped the torch and camera and went off to th divestop. Qick stop at the reception (other direction) to get two towels.

On the boat we met the australian couple again. However, only he is diving. The guides already geared up the tanks and brought our ABC-equipment and wetsuits on the boat. What a luxury. Then we went off to the first dive. The trip was very bumpy and when we arrived we were totally wet.

Our first dive was at Fujikawa Maru, 132m. 6,963 tons passenger cargo ship. It was built in 1938 and served in routes to North and South America as well as India until being taken for war used by the japanese Navy in 1940. September 1943, she was nearly sunk heading from Truk to Kwajalein by a torpedo from the USS permit. But she limped back to Truk lagoon in three days and was later repaird and returned to service in January 1944. The ronovated ship was struck by a torpedo during operation hailstone strike 3e-1 at 1420 hours by aircraft from the USS bunker hill and USS Monterey. She finally went down the next morning. That’s it to the history. So to the divespot. It is a mustdive! Totally amazing wreck!. It’s an exaircraft ferry wich rests upright. The depht is from 34m to 6m. Inside the ship you can still see airplanewings and machine guns. The mast of the ship is nearly reaching the surface. There is also a fighter plane in another room, for which that wreck became so famous. The pilothouse, baths, staterrooms, galley and engine room are also accesible, however we were only in the pilothouse and the engineroom. The bow gun is covered with plenty of colourful corals and sponges.

After that dive we went snorkeling to a little plane-a ZERO (Mitsubishi A6M Carrier Fighter “Reisen”) It lies upside down in a depht of only 6m.

The second dive was at Heian Maru, 155m. 11614 tons passenger cargo ship, It was built in 1930 at the cost of 15 million $. On her maidan voyage she set at transpazific speed record on a trip to seattle with passenger travelling in english style luxury. She was converted into a navy submarine tender in 1941. On the 17th of February 1944 a dive bomber from the USS Yorktown CV10 hit near the bow exploding the uperstructure in a fiery inferno. On the 18th two torpedo bombers from USS Bunker Hill scored near misses, but damaged the ship. The ship was then hit by Avenger torpedo bombers, which caused an explosion, sinking the ship. To the divespot: She lies on her portside. The depht is from 36m to 12m. She gained famous in 1970 when Cousteau showed her off on Tv with her name on the bow still readable in english as well as in japanese. The ship carried supplies for Japanese subs, so the wreck is crowded with sake-bottles. 14 longlance torpedos are found in the fwd hold. It is chuuks largest wreck and there are many corals on it and a shark is likelky to pass by. At least we saw one.

After the second dive we went back to the hotel, were we took an hour break and we headed to the betty bomber for our third dive. Betty – Mitsubishi G4M3 Navy Type 1 Attack Bomber – it’ a tactical bomber from the japanese navy which first took to air in 1939. Mass production started in 1940. Her shape gave her the name flying cigar , but she would also light up when shot because of her unprotected fuel tanks. This aircraft could also carry torpedoes. It appears that this betty was landing at the Eten Island airstrip, but went down just a few hundred meters short, breaking off her nose starboard wingtip, and engines, which were tossed forward nearly 100 meters off the port side. No one knows if she was shot down, or if her demise was a result of the American Operation Hailstone assault of 17.-18.Feb.,1944. We made lots of pictures of it. There were also mnany corals and little fish. Daddy didn’t get tired of taking pictures of them.

Back at the hotel we had the daily routine. Shower -only cold water here, but who cares, dinner – not that good here, but a very lovely grannylike waitress and a drink – gin tonic, which was mixed 50% gin and 505 tonic.

First we went from Yap to Guam. I had to fill out U.S. immigration forms for each of us and when we arrived in Guam the waiting started. First passport control, which was pretty fast, then flightticket control, and then long long queue for handluggage control. I, wisely, put the big underwater lamp seperatly before letting the lugage through. So I didn’t have to let my luggage be checked twice. And again I had to take off my flipflops.

The airport was totally crowded with U.S. soldiers from Micronesia. We even saw a girl. And on the walls were pictures of there fallen soldiers, or as they call it “fallen heroes”. It’s a really sad sight. All the pictures of smiling young men, some of them more boys than men.

Then, when we were finally “in” we went to the foodcourt. There was a shop, called Wienerschnitzel, they sold all styles of hot dogs and corndogs, and no schnitzel. And next to it was a Burger King. A double whopper (large), french fries and a coke and we even tried a corn dog…yummy yummy…we were stuffed and went to the gate.

Theflight, I was stucked between dad and a pretty chobby asain guy, was not very special. I could even nap a little bit. The breakfast was uneatable and then we arrived in chuuk. It was 8.30am local time.

Our bags were the first ones that arrived and then we went to Blue Lagoon Hotel. With us an aisan guy and an australian couple. The men is pilot for the military and right now on vacation from afganisthan.

After checking in and getting our room, second floor seaside, we went to the diveshop to sign the papers. Daddy, of course, wanted to do a dive that day, but I denyed. So I arranged a dive for him at half past two, which he overslept. Well, I could have told him that before.

The dinner, I had a Japanese scrambeld egg with pork and rice – sounded complete different on the menu – was “interesting”. Erwin didn’t like it. We had a “Betthupferl”-cocktail at the bar – we were the only guests and went to bed again.

Same procedure than every day. Except that we gave up in trying to see mantas and we went directly to the reef.

The first dive we did at the canvas. That was very cool. We dived through many caves for nearly 40 minutes. There were different types of lionfish and some filefish. One little brown one with whithe circles. I’m not sure if it really was an filefish, but it was adoreable. Daddy tried to take a picture of it, however, he is not used to the camera of Mümü.

The weather turned a bit while we were on divebreak and the waves got huge. So I geared up in the wather and even while we were diving it was very weavy. We did not do the canvas, but the reef next to them. There was a quite big white tipped reefshark. The camera got grounded to the boat, because it work again.

That night we went to dinner with Regina and Willi, the two from Vienna, because it was our last diveday we had a couple of winebottles till they kicked us out of the restaurant because they wanted to go to bed. Then the four of us just went to the pool, where we had some more bottels. After sunrise the last one, which was me, went to bed…pretty drunk….I had a good talk with Elnore from the reception and despite that I was only drinking water at the end, I had the worst hangover the next day. I coudln’t even eat plain toast. So I left the restaurant and jumped in the nice cold pool and afterwards straight back to bed.

At half past two we booked an island tour. Our guide, who couldn’t really be described as very talkaktiv, drove us around the island. Showed us a community house – used to talk about what they will do that day/week, for celebrations and so on, a men house – which is not allowed of women to enter, it is used for the men to sit there and protect the village. And the boys get taught the knowledge of the elder ones. Men houses are always at the sea, the stonepath – it was used before they got cars. On the path you can reach each village and each community/men house, the WWII leftovers – two small japanese planes and one “Kanone”, and the hill up so we could see the philippine sea at one side of the island and the pacific on the other side.

After three hours he dropped us off at the hotel again. After a little swim at the pool we went to dinner with Regina and Willi again. All three, except me, were already able to drink alcohol again. It kind of astonished me. We had tasty pizzas and than Regina and Willi had to say goodbye. They were heading to the ppr in palau. We left the restaurant as well and went to the room, because we were allowed to stay there till midnight. At midnight we got an wakeup call and I went down, however, nobody really cared if we leave to room or not and so I went back again. The bus. The driver was surprinsingly our guide from the land tour that afternoon and the guide of reginas and willis kayaking in the morning. I think that night all guest from the hotel left.

At the airport we had to open all our bags, but luckily they could check it through till chuuk. Then we went to immigration and after that to the gate, where they checked the hand luggage and we even had to take off our flipflops. And then we were sitting there and nearly each of the persons had bracelts of real flowers or crowns of them. I also got a bracelet at the hotel for farewell.