Questions About Truk

[Manneca]

Neither. I have back problems, and although I can walk with the gear, I don't want to risk another episode of sicatica, or even worse, possible surgery. The last episode took me months to recover from.

I wish I would get a straight answer. If they don't want to do it, or its just not the thing to be done here, that's fine - we don't NEED to dive at Truk, although we would like to. An elevator really doesn't help?

- Bill

I have back issues. I dived with Blue Lagoon. It's not the same as being on a liveaboard. We did three dives a day. It was about 20-40 minutes to the dive sites (two morning dives with the surface interval at an island and one afternoon dive). Two of us with one guide. They set up my gear on the edge of the boat, helped me into it. I did a backroll. On the exit, I take my gear off in the water and the boat guys hauled it up for me. (I don't like liveaboards.) So fewer dives, but less sea sickness. So, that's an idea to consider. Truk is great. I wouldn't miss it.

 

[Father]

I

I have back issues. I dived with Blue Lagoon. It's not the same as being on a liveaboard. We did three dives a day. It was about 20-40 minutes to the dive sites (two morning dives with the surface interval at an island and one afternoon dive). Two of us with one guide. They set up my gear on the edge of the boat, helped me into it. I did a backroll. On the exit, I take my gear off in the water and the boat guys hauled it up for me. (I don't like liveaboards.) So fewer dives, but less sea sickness. So, that's an idea to consider. Truk is great. I wouldn't miss it.

I think the less seasickness is debatable.
I personally didn't notice the motion on the larger vessel. I would think, depending on conditions, you're MORE likely to get sea sick on the smaller skiffs that the land-based operations use.

I also stayed at the Blue Lagoon after the Odyssey trip was done and I wouldn't stay there again. That place is a hole. The property isn't bad. It's large. The rooms are decent size. But the service in the restaurant was meh, the food was just as meh. The room I was in had no TV. The only wifi was in the area around the lobby.

I stayed at the L5 when I arrived. It's right across from the airport. Very modern rooms with TV and wifi. The cafe had fantastic food. That will be my goto for arrival and departure stays if/when I go back.

Contact the Odyssey to see if they can accommodate your needs.

 

[Joe K.]

Your description is spot on.

I will not use BLR again. The cost was high and the service sucked. The fill area was chaotic and no one seemed to manage it or care what was going on. Tanks were filled only if you were able to get someone's attention and stand next to them the whole time. Out of several analyzers only one seemed to work, so make sure to bring your own. The rides out were long and the briefing was non-existent. Thankfully, we did not have to endure this for too many days since we were scheduled on the Odyssey.

In contrast, the Odyssey is a top notch operation, night and day compared to BLR and well worth every penny. I would not be too concerned about seasickness. You are in the Lagoon and typical conditions are close to flat. Nothing a small dose of dramamine won't fix and you will probably not need it by the second day.

Good to know about the L5. I will check it out on my next trip.

I



I think the less seasickness is debatable.
I personally didn't notice the motion on the larger vessel. I would think, depending on conditions, you're MORE likely to get sea sick on the smaller skiffs that the land-based operations use.

I also stayed at the Blue Lagoon after the Odyssey trip was done and I wouldn't stay there again. That place is a hole. The property isn't bad. It's large. The rooms are decent size. But the service in the restaurant was meh, the food was just as meh. The room I was in had no TV. The only wifi was in the area around the lobby.

I stayed at the L5 when I arrived. It's right across from the airport. Very modern rooms with TV and wifi. The cafe had fantastic food. That will be my goto for arrival and departure stays if/when I go back.

Contact the Odyssey to see if they can accommodate your needs.

 

[Father]

Your description is spot on.

I will not use BLR again. The cost was high and the service sucked. The fill area was chaotic and no one seemed to manage it or care what was going on. Tanks were filled only if you were able to get someone's attention and stand next to them the whole time. Out of several analyzers only one seemed to work, so make sure to bring your own. The rides out were long and the briefing was non-existent. Thankfully, we did not have to endure this for too many days since we were scheduled on the Odyssey.

In contrast, the Odyssey is a top notch operation, night and day compared to BLR and well worth every penny. I would not be too concerned about seasickness. You are in the Lagoon and typical conditions are close to flat. Nothing a small dose of dramamine won't fix and you will probably not need it by the second day.

Good to know about the L5. I will check it out on my next trip.

For sure.I don't think anyone got seasick on the trip I took.
It looked pretty chaotic when I went to check out the "dive shop".
I know several people that stayed at The Truk Stop. It didn't look very impressive passing by it and the area it was in looked pretty sketchy. In all honesty I don't know how anyone would do anything but the Odyssey there.

I would definitely like to go again... I'd love to take my DPV as well.

 

[Peter69_56]

Been to Truk 5 times and had no real issues with Blue Lagoon. Going again in July and will use them again. They have always given us good service and taken us anywhere we wanted to go.

Food is somewhat average but it is a third world country after all. Place has always been clean. Who cares if there is no TV, there is life after the soap operas and the kardashians after all. We certainly dont go there to feel like we are home. Its actually great to engage in conversation and relax away from it all and just enjoy the diving.

Once you understand how island life works, the dive shop and boats are a breeze.

I would use them any time, and have been in much worse places diving.

 

[Kevrumbo]

I had been diving Truk every year continuously since 2007 up to Feb 2015, sometimes multiple trips of two weeks or more per year, and one year (2013) back-to-back after an expedition to Bikini Atoll. The diving is that good, but with the unfortunate caveat being the wrecks now undergoing stages of imminent final collapse after well over 70 years. The popular wreck's (Shinkoku Maru, Fujikawa Maru, San Francisco Maru etc) bridge superstructures' are disintegrating; some of the big wrecks sunk lying on their sides (Heian Maru, Rio de Janeiro Maru), their hulls especially at the bow are sagging & about to shear away. Be attentive during the pre-dive briefings, stay with your dive guide and again be in control with good neutral buoyancy & non-silting frog kicks if you penetrate inside.

Be especially aware on wrecks with high octane Aviation Gasoline Drums --The Hanakawa Maru for instance has deteriorating/leaking AvGas drums in the cargo holds; you can see the whitish gasoline layer suspended in the water column with bright ambient light, but sometimes you can inadvertently swim thru the layer while traversing a dark corridor. The most concentrated, nastiest and hazardous places are the upper corners of enclosed bulkheads where undiluted AvGas percolates up into & collects (I've suffered a caustic chemical 2nd degree wrist burn by accidentally sticking my hand up through this stuff on the Hoki Maru).

And lastly, don't be tempted to go inside the Fumizuki Destroyer engine room, or the I-169 Submarine aft hatchway on Backmount single tank -both over 30m/100' deep and very tight, silty & treacherously restrictive passageways- unless you are Sidemount doubles trained with advanced wreck certification. (The two popular tech advanced wreck deep dives -Aikoku Maru and Oite Destroyer- at 60m/200', as well as the wreck sites at the Fourth Fleet anchorages starting at 45m/150' are usually not visited by the Liveaboards, unless during a rare tech week charter. You can try to arrange a dive on them "a la carte" through Truk Stop Hotel/Truk Lagoon Dive Center or Blue Lagoon Dive Shop land based operations, either with pick-up from the Truk Odyssey Liveboard for example, or optionally staying land based at the respective dive-ops' hotels).

If all you had timewise was one week, then the Truk Odyssey would be the best way to visit all the popular wrecks within non-technical recreational depths (5 to 6 day itinerary, at least 3 dives on a particular wreck site/or 3 different wrecks per day). You will have the option to do the San Francisco Maru aboard the Truk Odyssey Liveaboard, but again unless you have technical diving certifications, they probably won't let you use their 11L AL80 twinsets and Eanx50/Oxygen deco gases. So in other words, you will be doing the San Fran Maru at 45 meters/150 feet deep --usually last dive of the week long itinerary-- on a single 11L AL80 cylinder (they do have larger 15L steel120 cylinders for rental as well) . . .and it will be an unsatisfyingly short bottom time of maybe 8 to 10 minutes with a few minutes of mandatory decompression on backgas starting around 12m/40 feet. Recommend bringing your own Oxygen Analyzer to check your Nitrox, or else you'll be waiting to use the dive-op's O2 Analyzer along with everybody else. Wear gloves, a full length skin suit 1 to 3mm thick with optional separate hood --all for jagged metal scrape/cut protection.

 

[Father]

I had been diving Truk every year continuously since 2007 up to Feb 2015, sometimes multiple trips of two weeks or more per year, and one year (2013) back-to-back after an expedition to Bikini Atoll. The diving is that good, but with the unfortunate caveat being the wrecks now undergoing stages of imminent final collapse after well over 70 years. The popular wreck's (Shinkoku Maru, Fujikawa Maru, San Francisco Maru etc) bridge superstructures' are disintegrating; some of the big wrecks sunk lying on their sides (Heian Maru, Rio de Janeiro Maru), their hulls especially at the bow are sagging & about to shear away. Be attentive during the pre-dive briefings, stay with your dive guide and again be in control with good neutral buoyancy & non-silting frog kicks if you penetrate inside.

You will have the option to do the San Francisco Maru aboard the Truk Odyssey Liveaboard, but again unless you have technical diving certifications, they probably won't let you use their 11L AL80 twinsets and Eanx50/Oxygen deco gases. So in other words, you will be doing the San Fran Maru at 45 meters/150 feet deep --usually last dive of the week long itinerary-- on a single 11L AL80 cylinder (they do have larger 15L steel120 cylinders for rental as well) . . .and it will be an unsatisfyingly short bottom time of maybe 8 to 10 minutes with a few minutes of mandatory decompression on backgas starting around 12m/40 feet. Recommend bringing your own Oxygen Analyzer to check your Nitrox, or else you'll be waiting to use the dive-op's O2 Analyzer along with everybody else. Wear gloves, a full length skin suit 1 to 3mm thick with optional separate hood --all for jagged metal scrape/cut protection.

Good info Kevrumbo.

I'd love to hear how the Bikini trip went. I think the last I heard the Windward wasn't going out but the Truk Master is doing it.

The wrecks are definitely deteriorating. I trusted the guides, but nobody can really say for sure when any part of those wrecks is going to collapse, so you're definitely rolling the dice getting inside them.

I did the SF Maru on a single AL80 with a 30 of 80% deco gas. That was enough to hit the major points on the wreck.
If I go back I'd like to bring my DPV so I can get a little more out of my single tank (no kicking) and see more at the same time.

I wore a shorty, sometimes with a Lavacore long sleeve top and gloves.

 

[bakodiver391]

Truk Master missed their first 2 trips due to technical difficulties. Windward has done her last non-scientific trip to Bikini as the new ship, Indies Surveyor, has been substituted with all appropriate technical gear. Surveyor has 5-2 person staterooms and a new recompression chamber. Bikini is opening up with more choices than ever.

 

[Hanzl]

If you have the time, I would suggest doing a longer time in Chuuk at Blue Lagoon rather than on a liveaboard (do not even consider Thorfinn - PM me for reasons). This will cost about the same overall, and you will do a similar number of dives, but you will get a greater range of dives as there are more deeper wrecks than there are shallow ones. On a liveaboard you can (safely) only do six (assuming a six day trip), but on a two week shore based trip you can do 12 or 13 (with a day off in middle). The rest of the dives can be the shallower ones.

I have been there six times, once on a liveaboard. Shore based is by far the best way I believe, so long as you have the time. Last two trips we spent three weeks there.

I would PM you but for some reason it isn't working for me so I'm posting it here.....
Hey,

I am reading your post from 2017 and you say to PM you for your opinion on the Thorfinn. We normally use the Odyssey or BLDS or both but the Odyssey is full. I would appreciate your opinion on the Thorfinn.

thxs

Hanz

 

[Fibonacci]

I also stayed at the Blue Lagoon after the Odyssey trip was done and I wouldn't stay there again. That place is a hole. The property isn't bad. It's large. The rooms are decent size. But the service in the restaurant was meh, the food was just as meh. The room I was in had no TV. The only wifi was in the area around the lobby..

My experience also... the grounds were really nicely groomed with lush tropical plants BUT I paying a premium for tired musty rooms, dodgy taps, AC intermittent and poor service made me vow never to return to BLR... Odyssey next time!

The food and service in the restaurant was particularly poor... shortages of key staples by Day 3.
I don't buy the excuse they trot out about the supply ship only arriving once a month.
They have a walk-in commercial freezer and coolroom, and know the expected bookings for the next month... so order in a pallet of frozen French Fries and some frozen local sustainable fish fillets like Mahi-mahi instead of hand-cutting potatoes (followed by huge delays in cooking them) and paying locals to harvest tiny reef fish straight off the same wrecks we dive on!