Starting to plan a trip to Truk/Chuuk - help please

[KpoxaAU]

Not kidding . . .(been to Trukstop Oct'08; Jan'09 and Nov/Dec'09).

If you're comfortable with your own tanks, manifold & bands, there's a DHL shipping office on the road between the airport and Trukstop (DHL website says three days transit time from mainland US). . . arrange delivery with whatever dive op you go with.

Agree. (TrukStop Nov'08, July'09, Mar'10)

Going to TrukStop, you not really need to carry you tanks, unless you are going with _very_ large group of tech dives and going to use twins sets for everyone. Being there (for my 3rd time) less than three weeks ago I can confirm that there are plenty of Ally 80' (total number about 90+), number of assembled (bands, manifolds, screws) twin sets of Ally 80' (not sure about total number, we used at least 8 sets, ask Kelvin), 20+ small stage bottles and rebreather bailouts. They all serviced properly. Kelvin at TrukStop definitely trusted blending station operator there, he the only fills the bottles for many customers at Truk outside dive shop including firefighters and medical.

BTW, Continental will charge USD100 each way every your tank, so if you insist to your tanks - you can go. The rent of tanks at TrukStop are included in your dive anyway.

There are only one things you really want not to forget - your stabilising plates, if you're on twins with DiveRite. It is always good having you own regs, harnesses and wings, however there are some sets in TrukStop, but you need confirm with them in advance. Having O2/He Analyser with you is essential, however for Nitrox you can use O2 Analyser which Truk Stop has onboard (have no idea about BlueLagoon, and both liveaboards).

Mentioned earlier - Truk Stop is the only place where you can get proper He mixes. You may find Thorfin carrying a He supply bottle, but you need to have your Trimix blender ready staying there (and the price of He on Thorfin will probably suck out all your budget.) There is no chance to get He mix in BlueLagoon and Odyssey. There is no chance to stay in BlueLagoon or Odyssey and get the Trimix tanks ordered from TrukStop - Kelvin maintans "clean filling station" and he is not distributing his tanks around or accepting tanks from other DCs.

Saying "proper mix", I mean that dealing with Kelvin, you dealing with blending profy. He is not going to waste your money and he delivers accurately correct mix as per your order. And - also very important - he does that always accurately in time. (Filling 40 singles of various Nitrox and 10 sets of various Trimix may have some time, obviously, in Truk, when your divers coming back from sea at 4p.m. and run away next day at 8a.m.). Also one of "plus" I found with staying in Truk Stop - you not listening the compressor running all the time in a background (as you do on liveaboards).

What is may be important for tech diver - the TrukStop DC stuff is good trained, without additional questions they know how to deal with surfaced tech diver, they pick up your tanks and equipment from a water, they carry your heavy equipment on a surface, leaving you to relax and not disturb your bubbles more than needed.

Also mentioned earlier - three Truk Stop's boats are not the "top ten in a world", but they are reliable, properly assembled, always carry O2 and they are probably the best on Truk.

BlueLagoon, Thorfin and TrukStop - all runs boats to the sites, and there is not a great difference between run-time, really. Almost all most popular sites are 20-30 minutes away from both shore DCs and I often saw Thorfin and Odyssey parked just across BlueLagoon and run the divers from there with their own boats. The thing is that not every site has a surface (or UW) buoy - hence there is no chance to jump to exactly correct location from Odyssey (Fumitsuki is good example, but not the alone). Also, last July storm moved buoys sometimes 30 meters away from common positions and on some sites they anchor the boat except of tagging to the buoy.

There is not really a big difference in a price which you pay "per night" at TrukStop and Blue Lagoon. And the rooms conditions are close. The essential of TrukStop that it is located near shopping places and you can get your fresh bananas and coconuts just crawling yourself a couple hundreds meters. I did not find the TrukStop location any way noisy through the day or at night (probably because I sleep like a baby after dives).

5 dives a day? Pf-f-f-f-f... Are you serious? Unless you are going to see tops of superstructures - take a dive sites map with marked depth and calculate yourself. And remember, that liveaboard are not going to jump from one site to another just because of your "wonderful plan". Obviously the interesting points at dive sites are a bit deeper, there is always "something" below which you want to get close and stay longer with your camera. However, that is the truth, that for "general observation" purposes dives you may cover many of sites (but not even close to all, neither to half) with Nitrox 32 and if you need special reduced mix - you can get it at TrukStop.

I have some videos captured for my friends and club about blending station at TrukStop, their pier and boats. As well as wrecks. Will distribute it later sometime if anyone will be interested, after I will get 5 posts . (sorry this may not happen soon, I prefer to read, not write).

 

[padiscubapro]

The LDS that I spend too much time with (and too much money) is looking at putting together a trip to Truk/Chuuk. The store owner is not exactly computer savy so I have been recruited to ask the SB community for some help and guidance.

Here are the basic questions that I am looking for an answer (or at least an opinion to):

The shop owner prefers a land based operation over a liveaboard (he's never done the liveaboard so he has made up his mind without fully researching the idea). However he has heard that the shore based operations are to be taken with a grain of salt since the countryside is considered to be dirty by some people, dangerous by others and apparently there isn't much to do off the resorts. So I would like to know if any of these are true?

Next if we do go with a landbased approach then we are thinking of either the TrukStop or Blue Lagoon. I understand that the TrukStop caters to technical diving if that is your cup of tea while the Blue Lagoon doesn't as much. We have also been led to understand that the Blue Lagoon is a little more isolated and all inclusive while the TrukStop is in town and is considered much nosier. Once again - what is the truth on these thoughts?

Finally - the shop owner is open to the idea of a liveaboard if there are enough concerns about the land based operations ... I am hopeful he will go with the odyssey. Is the odyssey still the best option and I understand that they carry nitrox mixes but do they carry He?

Thanks everyone in advance

I have been to CHUUK many times and tried out all the options... AT this point any trip that I take to Chuuk will be on the thorfinn.. Very big boat, confortable and divers can do their thing..

I will now only use a land based op for getting some rest on the last day, as I always checdule the flight home for the 2am monday flight to guam as this allows for the shortest trip home and the most options should flights get cancelled in HI or Narita (depends on the routing you want to take)

 

[padiscubapro]

The dive sites are 10 to 20 minutes away from Blue Lagoon and you can add another 5 minutes for Truk Stop. Both places dive the exact same dive sites as the liveaboards so you are NOT going to miss anything by saving $1000. You might get 4 dives a day on the liveaboards (remember the diving is deeper than many other places) and you only get 3 with land based operations.

.

On the thorfinn you can get 5 dives a day in on most days.. my last trip I opted to only do 3 dives a day but they were long deep dives with just 2 other divers... (we had a launch to ourselves)

 

[padiscubapro]

For those trimix and tech wreck penetration certified, the only helium readily available out of all dive ops landbased & liveaboard, is at the Trukstop Hotel/Truk Lagoon Dive Center. A minimum 20/20 trimix with eanx50 & Oxygen deco is the best way to tour the San Francisco Maru, Aikoku Maru and all the deep wrecks of the Fourth Fleet Anchorage (and the Oite Destroyer to the north as well) --wrecksites that the liveaboards rarely visit unless on a dedicated tech wreck charter.

btw, Trukstop supplies the Blue Lagoon Dive Shop with the oxygen needed to blend their day-to-day needs for nitrox.

The thorfin usualy has He on board but you need to confirm ahead of time... personally for the majority of the dives its not needed... there is plenty of nitrox available as well since they produce their own o2..

 

[ncchuck]

The thorfin usualy has He on board but you need to confirm ahead of time... personally for the majority of the dives its not needed... there is plenty of nitrox available as well since they produce their own o2..

I certainly hope the Thornfin has the ability to blend the nitrox to specifications. 32% wouldn't work on many dives.

Having lived on Chuuk I think the post by KpoxaAU is one of the most accurate I've ever seen. If you can do 5 dives a day, you aren't seeing the best parts fo most of the wrecks and/or you're really pushing the limits of daily repetitive diving.

The Thornfin is run by a guy that some people just can't stand. Others find him interesting. I never met him but heard lots and lots of stories. Interesting if nothing else.

 

[Centrals]

Most divers go to Truk only once in their diving adventures. They probably would like to see bit of everything from a submarine, tank, 18" shell for Yamato, torpedo, destroyer etc etc. How often can you see a intacted destroyer under water and at reasonable depth? Five dives a day offered by Thorfinn would just fit the bill.
We are going back to Thorfinn in two days time, Captain Hick's personality is not my concern. How he runs the boat up to our liking is far more important.

 

[KpoxaAU]

How often can you see a intacted destroyer under water and at reasonable depth? Five dives a day offered by Thorfinn would just fit the bill.

The question and statement the above probably require the answer for the following question: How often you want to see the barochamber after that?

Come one, you've picked up the wrong example, mate. There are two intacted destroyers in a lagoon and both - sorry to say that - are outside the "5 dives per day" window:

- Fumitsuki's depth starting on 33 msw. And "starting" here means "your are able to see something from above", as the visibility at that site is not great at all, obviously, due to site location and marine environment. This wreck can not be covered with single 5-10 minutes BT dive, unless you are totally agree to waste your time and money on the useless dive and just got a "tick" in a log "John'been'there". Planning Fumitsuki you are planning either one solid 35 msw dive (with couple of drops to 39 for 1-2 minutes time) for 35-40 minutes BT (twin sets), or two 20 minites time for the same depth (single tank). I say again, take your planning software and compare the reality of that dive with number of following to complete your dreaming "5 per day".

- Oite. I consider this wreck is absolutely off-topic for this thread. "Just because". However (I think many from those who been there will agree), in most cases the dive you can do after visiting Oite is related to something really 20 msw max on 50% Nitrox or (coffee on a shore, if you are not sure what's in a cup).

And within the above - there is nothing to do with "attitude", BTW. Truk Lagoon is extremely diver friendly environment in terms of water temperature, visibility and current. And it has barochamber as well ... if someone used to use.

Gents, sorry for saying that, but, please, stop bull****ting people and promoting "5 dives per day in Truk Lagoon". "5 dives per day" is partially acceptable for direct DC advertisement only, but is has nothing to do with Truk wreck diving reality. Even 4 dives per day is too much. 3 per day sounds more real, assuming 1 deep and two following shallow on reach Nitrox (this schema from 4-5 to 7 day). Planning "two per day" will probably force many of reasonable divers to start look at you as potential buddy.

Anyway, all the above is strongly IMHO. Meantime and just for improve my diving understanding: I will take a look with all my pleasure on a dive plan for wreck diving for "5 dives per day" in Truk - is anyone wanna to share?

 

[Kevrumbo]

From a liveaboard mooring in the general vicinity, a day with five possible dives with recreational profiles and air or eanx30 are:

Kensho Maru
Kiyosumi Maru
Yamagiri Maru
and
Heian Maru (2 dives -afternoon and night);

truk lagoon wreck diving

 

[KpoxaAU]

From a liveaboard mooring in the general vicinity, a day with five possible dives with recreational profiles and air or eanx30 are:

Kensho Maru
Kiyosumi Maru
Yamagiri Maru
and
Heian Maru (2 dives -afternoon and night);

Great. I have better:
Fumitsuki
Fumitsuki
Fumitsuki
Fumitsuki (night picnic on a deck)
Fumitsuki (top fore mast)
Continue that all 5(6,7,8) days of you trip.

Guess, I meant not a single day , but whole trip with "5 per day". To complete a bill (log, proof for ScubaBoard, etc) :blinking:

 

[RJP]

Come one, you've picked up the wrong example, mate. There are two intacted destroyers in a lagoon and both - sorry to say that - are outside the "5 dives per day" window:

- Fumitsuki's depth starting on 33 msw. And "starting" here means "your are able to see something from above", as the visibility at that site is not great at all, obviously, due to site location and marine environment. This wreck can not be covered with single 5-10 minutes BT dive, unless you are totally agree to waste your time and money on the useless dive and just got a "tick" in a log "John'been'there". Planning Fumitsuki you are planning either one solid 35 msw dive (with couple of drops to 39 for 1-2 minutes time) for 35-40 minutes BT (twin sets), or two 20 minites time for the same depth (single tank). I say again, take your planning software and compare the reality of that dive with number of following to complete your dreaming "5 per day".

- Oite. I consider this wreck is absolutely off-topic for this thread. "Just because". However (I think many from those who been there will agree), in most cases the dive you can do after visiting Oite is related to something really 20 msw max on 50% Nitrox or (coffee on a shore, if you are not sure what's in a cup).

And within the above - there is nothing to do with "attitude", BTW. Truk Lagoon is extremely diver friendly environment in terms of water temperature, visibility and current. And it has barochamber as well ... if someone used to use.

Gents, sorry for saying that, but, please, stop bull****ting people and promoting "5 dives per day in Truk Lagoon". "5 dives per day" is partially acceptable for direct DC advertisement only, but is has nothing to do with Truk wreck diving reality. Even 4 dives per day is too much. 3 per day sounds more real, assuming 1 deep and two following shallow on reach Nitrox (this schema from 4-5 to 7 day). Planning "two per day" will probably force many of reasonable divers to start look at you as potential buddy.

Anyway, all the above is strongly IMHO. Meantime and just for improve my diving understanding: I will take a look with all my pleasure on a dive plan for wreck diving for "5 dives per day" in Truk - is anyone wanna to share?

Well, specific to the Fumitzuki. Here's what I did last year:

March 10, 2009

8:10am - Fumitzuki
Max Depth: 126'
Run Time: 39min

11:40am - Shinkoku Maru
Max Depth: 130'
Run Time: 46min

2:17pm - Shinkoku Maru
Max Depth: 108'
Run Time: 42min

5:11pm - Shinkoku Maru
Max Depth: 99'
Run Time: 45min

8:43pm - Shinkoku Maru
Max Depth: 82'
Run Time: 49min

I can't find my log book for the week before (did back-to-back weeks on the the Odyssey) but pretty sure I did four dives following an AM dive on the Fumitzuki that week too.

Let's see what else we have...

March 11, 2009

8:05am - Hoki Maru
151' for 47min

11:34am - Fujikawa Maru
108' for 44min

3:04pm - Fujikawa Maru
105' for 55min

7:04pm - Fujikawa Maru
106' for 47min

March 12, 2009

7:41am - Momakawa Maru
146' for 51min

11:59pm - Nippo Maru
153' for 38min

2:56pm - Heian Maru
116' for 55min

7:09pm - Heian Maru
102' for 48min

Will have to find my log book for the previous week, as I did all available dives that week. Total of 57 dives in the 17 days I was there, between 14 days on Odyssey and three days at Blue Lagoon. Now, admittedly, most of the "5th" dives on any days I did five were slow, shallow night dives on the superstructure of whatever wreck we were diving on that evening. The only days I did "only" three dives were the days we did San Francisco and Amagisan. Ran all dives through V-Planner with +2 conservativism before entering the water; waited until my Vytec DS cleared before getting out of the water.

Closest I got to a chamber was having my picture taken leaning on the one outside the Blue Lagoon Dive Shop.