Monday, January 10, 2011

Who sunk the Tokai Maru & the Cormoran or "something like that"

Missy wanted me to write a post so I figured I would write about my last dive. I went out to Apra Harbor....we can see it from our house. Its the only industrial harbor and center for Naval traffic on Guam. The harbor is about 1-3 feet in some places and has channels over160 feet. Nice coral and looks very healthy as there is not much by way of industrial economics trash getting pumped out. Interesting thing is back during World War I the germans managed to have something to do with Guam....don't know what they hell they were doing way over here but one of their cruisers managed to get sunk getting by an american submarine right there in the water about a ninety to hundred plus feet down. Most of her hull completely intact. Fast forward a few months to World War II and the japanese invade Guam take the harbor and start trying to crank out the war machine across the pacific. History says they left a nice big freighter/container ship on silhouette.  In the whooping that ensued by allied forces, another US sub sneaks into the harbor and sinks this one as well. By chance it happens to be right next to the Cormoran. So you have these two massive ships one still with depth charges in her bow sitting barely touching one another. Both completely intact. I have done quite a few dives now and I can say they were so massive that the Tokai Maru sat listing on her port side which made me feel like I was sliding down into the no mans land in depth. No worries though cause the dive computer kept me safe but my brain kept telling me I was swimming  side ways. Weird feeling but seeing the ships and knowing the history was quite spectacular. There are may relics sitting on the bottom in the harbor and one could spend alot of time checking them out.... but not too much time since your air quickly runs out when you are that deep. If you are lucky you can squeeze about 30  minutes of bottom time at that depth. Great experience.

1 comment:

  1. Nice to "hear" from you, Carlos! Congratulations on being a new dad!!

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