Epic trip to Chuuk Lagoon for the famous wrecks. Thank you Pete Mesley – Lust4Rust for all the arrangements.
The good…
Lust 4 Rust – Pete Mesley – for arranging a wonderful trip and making the diving work like clockwork! Thanks Pete! The only way to book a Chuuk trip:
https://petemesley.com/lust4rust/
The diving – spectacular
All the stories that you hear about Chuuk Lagoon say that it is wreck diver’s paradise. This is no exaggeration. I have been intending to go since the early 90’s, and finally visited in 2025.
My South African expedition was facilitated by friend and veteran Truk expert; Pete Mesley’s Lust for Rust. Diving out of Blue Lagoon Resort which is ideally located very close to the bulk the 70 wrecks.
The small video from one of our expedition boats, shows you the facilities at the dive center and some of the wrecks. You don’t need to be a technical diver to visit. But if you are it allows you to make the expedition fully worthwhile. With CCR you do not have limits… my 12 dives were a total of 25 hours (I had sinus problems and was limited to one dive a day). But Manni and Bruce who did the full complement of 20 dives produced 33 hours each.
My favorite dive was to the San Francisco Maru but I also enjoyed the submarine I-169.
The main US striking force action was 17 and 18 February 1944, Operation Hailstone. So 81 years ago (at time of my writing). There is a lot of information on the net about this.
Just some fun facts I wrote in our WhatsApp group before we left…
For us traveling from South Africa (JNB):
Our total time in the air is 22-hour 45 min, time on ground is 9:15 so total travel time from first take off to last landing is 32 hours – its lucky I like flying.
And we are flying 10626 miles. The earth is 24901 miles is circumference. So we are traveling equivalent of 0.43 round the world, and with the return its 0.86 of the world. Maybe the Capetonians will make it all the way around!
The earth’s diameter is only 7936 miles – so if the cavers went through the center of the earth (always wanted to do that) you would have got all the way through with 2699 miles to spare – relative to what we are flying.
Also – last silly fact…
As the crow flies (it would be a tired crow) for JNB to Chuuk; its 8522 miles – so we are going the longer route.
Caveat:
The flights on the way home were much longer, due to 2 cancelled UA flights. This made it a 60-hour travel, excluding the two day’s wait for a plane.
These expeditions are entertaining in many ways.
The bad…
United Airlines for cancelling two flights on two consecutive days, significantly disrupting the plans of many passengers. To make matters worse, they then claimed that missed connections on other airlines were not their responsibility. A clear case of ‘sorry, not sorry’.
Allianz insurance for insisting the claims were not their problem, and I quote “There is no other benefit under the policy that can match your scenario.” Also a sad ‘sorry, not sorry’ story. Customers beware of their very limited claim “scenarios”! Zero out of Five!
Shexit 