Truk Lagoon - Feb 2012

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.

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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.

Truk Lagoon 2012 Underwater shipwrecks Photo1

Truk Lagoon - Feb 2012

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