Bikini Atoll study

[oldschoolto]

Have known that fact about the naming of the bikini for a long time... Still love them....

Jim....

 

[Isabelle]

Thank you everyone for your response that have been incredibly useful. Thanks also to all of the people on this thread that took the time to talk with me about their experience in Bikini.

If you could spare a couple of minutes to complete this survey (very short, all multiple choice questions: 2min max) I would greatly appreciate it.
Ps: you can fill it even if you haven't been to Bikini!

Bikini Wreck Diving survey

 

[clownfishsydney]

Survey done. As I stated, the cost has always been far too high for me to justify a trip there (and I have dived German WWI wrecks in Scapa Flow and Chuuk 6 times).

 

[Peter69_56]

Survey done. As I stated, the cost has always been far too high for me to justify a trip there (and I have dived German WWI wrecks in Scapa Flow and Chuuk 6 times).

Yes but some things are priceless. For me although its price is high, its a dive location I just must dive before I am too old to get there. The Antarctic is another place I want to go, but the excessive price coupled with the intense cold (which I hate with a passion) probably means its out for me.

 

[Kevrumbo]

Just like Truk, the wrecks at Bikini haven't been picked apart by illegal salvaging (unlike other great WWII capital ships sunk in action and dive-able like Battleship HMS Prince of Wales & Battlecruiser HMS Repulse; Cruisers USS Houston & HMAS Perth and Aircraft Carrier HMS Hermes).

However, after 70 or more years now --they are all in imminent states of final collapse (especially in Truk). USS Saratoga's flight deck has collapsed into the hanger spaces below, crushing and leaving inaccessible the cool vintage WWII US naval fighters, bombers & torpedo planes; ordnance, bombs, munitions etc.

Worst case another ten more years, they are all going to be unrecognizable & hazardous piles of unstable rubble. . .

 

[geoff w]

I always wanted to dive Bikini. At a scuba show a few years back (either Long Beach or DEMA in Las Vegas) I was talking to a dive operator who said diving there became difficult to impossible because the locals were making a lot more from shark finning and didn't want divers around to see it. The comments soured me on diving there. We subsequently dived Palau and loved it so much we're going back later this year, with a bunch of friends in tow this go around

 

[deeper thoughts]

Hi, am wanting to go in 2017 but the cost is a problem along with the fact my wife cannot do liveaboards as she gets sea sick so she cannot go. If there was a land option more would come. Happy to talk further with you here or via email etc.

By comparison I have dived Truk 3 times and going again, Palau once and will never go back

How come you didn't like Palau. thnx

 

[Peter69_56]

Felt it was like a cattle market with divers. They also tell you they are taking you to different places, but they just use the same reef, just in a slightly different spot. We paid extra to go to a different area, and yet again we went a little way further down the same reef. Funnily, although often when we had the majority of people on the boat in our group, occasionally a couple would join, but when we asked to dive a different spot, the answer was that others had requested somewhere else. We saw the same shark with the same big hook in his mouth maybe 6-8 times. Now either that shark is one very busy shark, or we were going to the same area day after day. Much of the top reef where we went is badly damaged from inexperienced divers, clearly lots of coral busted off, people encouraged to cuddle big fish etc etc.

 

[Kevrumbo]

Felt it was like a cattle market with divers. They also tell you they are taking you to different places, but they just use the same reef, just in a slightly different spot. We paid extra to go to a different area, and yet again we went a little way further down the same reef. Funnily, although often when we had the majority of people on the boat in our group, occasionally a couple would join, but when we asked to dive a different spot, the answer was that others had requested somewhere else. We saw the same shark with the same big hook in his mouth maybe 6-8 times. Now either that shark is one very busy shark, or we were going to the same area day after day. Much of the top reef where we went is badly damaged from inexperienced divers, clearly lots of coral busted off, people encouraged to cuddle big fish etc etc.

Well . . .that's the downside of large land based operations like Sams and Fish n' Fins if you only have a short week to visit. It's better to go with a liveaboard for more dives per day and a greater variety & flexible choice of dive sites, without the long travel times and fixed itineraries of the land based operations.

I've been going to Palau since 1999, and unfortunately IMO, it's the larger number & "pressure" of visiting novice divers that's taking it's toll on the reefs along with the growing population and strain on Palau's civilian infrastructure (i.e. Litter, trash, occasional sewage spills etc). I fear in the future it may some day be as overdeveloped as Cozumel is now, and the spectacular coral walls, pelagic schooling marine life and drift diving scenes not as prolific or abundant anymore. . .

 

[Kevrumbo]

Hi Scubaboard divers,

I'm at student in the business school at UCLA and I am working on a non profit project for the atoll of Enewetak located in the Marshall Islands. We are conducting a study about the wreck diving site in the Bikini Atoll.

The results of the study would hopefully empower the local government of the Marshall Islands to make the Bikini wreck diving site more accessible to divers. We are trying to find divers who have dove Bikini or considered it but chosen other sites (Truuk, Palau etc...)

If you would willing to chat with us, please reach out to me via this site.

Kind regards,

Isabelle

Isabelle (and fellow UCLA Bruin!) --As for Bikini Atoll, it's only a advanced deep tech wreck & historical niche best served by long range liveaboard with embarkation at Kwajalein Atoll (a United Airlines Stop). Because of the logistics & maintenance of expensive technical diving equipment and specialized breathing gas supply & blending, it's not a financially viable/profitable self-sustaining enterprise IMO to re-establish the land based dive-ops or enlarge/widen the landing strip for 737 jetliner service to carry the heavy gear luggage of visiting Technical Divers to Bikini Island.