Truk Lagoon - Feb 2012 - # - Underwater Reflections

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Underwater photography is my great escape from normal daily life. It totally immerses me (both figuratively and literally) in nature. I never think about my day job; I am always fully "in the moment." My best underwater photography is in the Underwater Highlights gallery. Bears, birds, etc. are in the Nature galleries.

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Bruce Yates > Truk - or "Chuuk" in the local language - is one state in the Federal States of Micronesia (to get there, go to Guam and hang a left). The islands within Truk Lagoon (seen in the map above) were once the home of a Japanese fleet. This was also the site of a WWII U.S. airstrike dubbed Operation Hailstone, on February 17, 1944. Although part of the Japanese fleet escaped, many others did not. I spent a week aboard M.V. Odyssey diving on those wrecks. The long, thin rim around those islands is an atoll, the remnant of a volcano's rim, and the interior islands were portions of the inside of the volcano. The atoll is now made of thousands of layers of coral, which continues to grow new layers near the surface.

Bruce Yates > Because the shipwrecks in Truk Lagoon have been there nearly 70 years now, the wrecks themselves have become, in essence, artificial reefs. I spent much of my time examining and photographing the life that now covers them. While my strobes only illuminate a small portion of the colorful life growing on these wrecks in the foreground, you can be sure that blue-gray shapes in the background are just as alive with the same corals, sponges and algaes!

Bruce Yates > Deep Fisheye View. You will see numerous circular photos in this gallery. I took them using the new Canon 8-15mm circular fisheye lens, which takes a 180-degree photo in all directions (i.e., from straight up to straight down, and side to side). This shot is looking down on the wreck of the San Francisco Maru. This was the deepest dive of the trip (165-185 feet, depending on where you went), so we could only spend a few minutes down there, but I wish we could have dived it more than once!

Bruce Yates > Bow gun on the San Francisco Maru. Because of the depth (this shot was taken at 165 feet), there is a bit less life growing on this gun than many of the shallower wrecks in Truk (due to less sunlight). I was feeling a little "narc'ed" on this dive (technically Nitrogen Narcosis--a high concentration of nitrogen due to the pressure, similar to the feeling you get at the dentist with nitrous oxide), so I only shot a few photos on this wreck and then headed back up. This big gun was certainly one of the highlights!

Bruce Yates > Two tanks sit jammed together on the deck of the San Francisco Maru at a depth of 165 ft.

Bruce Yates > Two boats, two bows. The true circular fisheye lens I was using for the first time on this trip (Canon 8-15mm) allowed me to capture not only the growth on the bow of this ship, but the sand straight below and the dive boat up above.

Bruce Yates > Soft coral arch. The sides of this walkway of a wreck was covered in gorgeous soft corals, with a floor of green algae that made it look like a garden path!

Bruce Yates > Soft corals on the mast of a shipwreck, with the dive boat's steps and "hang bar" above. The hang bar (with an emergency tank) is at a depth of 12 feet, and enables divers to easily do a "safety stop" to off-gas before boarding the boat.

Bruce Yates > Clarks anemonefishes in an anemone. I used a Kenko 1.4X teleconverter in conjunction with the Canon 8-15mm lens for some "wide angle macro" photography. All of the shots with anemonefishes (aka "clownfish", albeit not technically correct) were with that combination. The close-ups were heavily cropped (you can only get so close!).

Bruce Yates > A dive guide watches as divers' bubbles emerge from the wreck below.

Bruce Yates > Coral growth on the deck of a wreck looks a bit like a creepy forest.

Bruce Yates > A colorful tank (minus the barrel) sits on the deck of a wreck.

Bruce Yates > Japanese Zero (one-man plane). One of the ships we dove serviced airplanes, so one of the big hulls was full of airplane pieces, in various states of decomposition.

Bruce Yates > Propeller of an upside down wreck.

Bruce Yates > I was amazed at the size of the propellers, and there were generally two of them! Unfortunately, light from my strobes can only illuminate (and show the true colors of) portions of the propeller less than 7-8 feet away.

Truk - or "Chuuk" in the local language - is one state in the Federal States of Micronesia (to get there, go to Guam and hang a left). The islands within Truk Lagoon (seen in the map above) were once the home of a Japanese fleet. This was also the site of a WWII U.S. airstrike dubbed Operation Hailstone, on February 17, 1944. Although part of the Japanese fleet escaped, many others did not. I spent a week aboard M.V. Odyssey diving on those wrecks. The long, thin rim around those islands is an atoll, the remnant of a volcano's rim, and the interior islands were portions of the inside of the volcano. The atoll is now made of thousands of layers of coral, which continues to grow new layers near the surface.