Brian and I shine our lights
into her open cargo hold. Ever so slowly we swim inside. With our beams
pointed in any direction, all we see is darkness; the space is too large
to pierce. We enter the unknown. There is no reference point, nothing to
provide context or foundation. On most dives, the surface and the bottom
remain in view and provide an illusion of control. I can tolerate the
void between two known edges. But now the world is going black. We are
descending into a claustrophobic container full of fear.
We are in Truk Lagoon,
Micronesia, the finest wreck diving location in the world. I’ve flown
to Hawaii, then eight hours further West to Guam, then another four
hours South to Truk, to rendezvous with Brian Harley, longtime friend
and co-adventurer. This was the site of a massive raid on Japanese
supply ships in February of 1944. Allied planes sank roughly 40 Japanese
freighters. Most of these ships sit in about 100 feet of water, highly
accessible for recreational divers.
Today, we are diving the wreck
of The Heian Maru, a World War II Japanese submarine tender, lying on
her side in about 90 feet of water. Her resting-place is roughly 1500
miles south of Tokyo. In surprisingly good shape, The Heian Maru is
largely intact and looks much like she did in 1944. Draped in an eerie
rusty coating, there is not much marine growth obscuring her form.
Most resort diving is
relatively safe. Truk is different; this is the only dive destination
I’ve visited where people talk about divers dying in recent history,
as in, “did you hear about the couple last week?" Repetitive
dives to deep wrecks increase the risk of getting the bends, which is
one of the many things that can kill a diver here in Truk. At depth,
nitrogen in the air we breathe becomes dangerous when it saturates the
bloodstream. We use underwater dive computers to calculate how much we
absorb on each dive, and how much time between dives is needed to
breathe out that same nitrogen on the surface. The computers tell us how
many dives we can pack into a day, since we hope to maximize our time on
the wrecks during our brief visit. It’s not an exact science. Every
person interacts with nitrogen differently.
On my 10,000-mile voyage to
Truk, I had plenty of time to think about the relationship between risk
and adventure. How real was the possibility that I might die on this
trip? Each time I changed planes on my journey, my mind tried its best
to shut down my adventurous spirit and the childlike explorer who brings
that spirit to life. My spirit won, and got me to the dive boat with a
bag full of dive gear.
We slowly continue across the
open space, within the giant 1000-ton ship. We float through what was
once the top cargo hold, home to supplies for countless Japanese
submarines. I scan the now empty area for large fish that might be
filling the void. All I see is blackness. Is there something lurking
beyond the fringes of my beam of light?
I’ve been diving on wrecks
before. In the Florida Keys, I dove down to examine a sunken drug
running freighter scuttled by the government to create a marine park. In
the Virgin Islands, I perused a sunken rumrunner. In Bonaire, I explored
a ship that broke up when it ran aground. In each case, I could easily
imagine that the crew got off the boat before it sank. So wreck diving
was never about the crew; instead my attention was focused on the
rusting hulk that was left behind.
Not in Truk. Sailors died on
these ships. It used to be common for divers to see skeletons and bones.
Several years ago, a Japanese organization completed a massive clean up
effort to remove all the remains and return them to Japan for proper
burial. I was afraid we would find someone they had missed. Despite this
fear, we shined our lights in each dark space, searching for Pacific man
eating sea creatures, human remains and war artifacts, in that order.
Ninety feet beneath the
surface, we arrive at the second cargo hold, two layers beneath the top
deck. Brian and I pause at the jagged opening made by an American bomb.
We look into each other’s frightened eyes, searching for some hint of
encouragement or terror, some signal to proceed or retreat.
We are about to go deeper into
a wreck than we have ever been before. Wreck diving gets progressively
more dangerous as you go deeper into a ship. Should equipment fail, a
speedy trip to the surface is unlikely. You’d have to first find your
way out of the ship before you can ascend. You can also get lost and run
out of air before you find your exit hole. Today, Brian and I are
staying particularly close. Should there be a problem, we will share
whatever equipment still works, perhaps buddy breathing off the same
tank of air while we make our way out. That’s the theory anyway, as
long as neither one of us panics.
Simultaneously, we shrug our
shoulders and proceed. People died in this space, violently. Floating
now with their spirits, our fears seem pretty small. We scan this new
deck for any cargo or marine life. Nothing, just the boundless black of
a cargo hold the size of an Olympic swimming pool.
Although we know other divers
have been here before, there is no evidence that anyone has penetrated
this ship since it sank. The only other diver in the water now is our
divemaster, a local, who happens to be very casual about safety, or
extremely confident in our ability. Presently, he’s off on his own
somewhere, well out of sight.
On past wreck dives in the
Caribbean, the surface was littered with other dive boats, dumping off
schools of divers. I once waited at the entrance to a passageway for
three divers from another group to swim through. Nobody waved, as we
tried our best to pretend that we were the first to explore this place,
even though it was looking more like a theme park than a secret
underwater world.
In Truk, we are among just a handful
of divers who visit each season. Spread among many wrecks in the lagoon,
who knows how long it has been since divers were here? Maybe a new shark
has taken up residence since the last visitor passed through. Or perhaps
unexploded bombs have shifted. When we anchored our dive boat alone
above this wreck, I was very aware of my childhood dream to be the first
to discover a secret piece of history.
Once more we come to a
hatchway, inviting us deeper into the ship. We don’t even pause to
think about proceeding. We are both too excited, this is what we have
traveled halfway around the world to see. The little explorer inside me
is beaming, and he isn’t thinking about risk or death. My inner adult
can take care of that, he’s the one who thinks about being safe and
responsible. I’ve wanted to see these wrecks since I was 12. I used to
take a particular dog-eared copy of Skin Diver magazine to Sunday school
and read it in the back row. I remember its blue cover and the headline,
“Those Amazing Wrecks of Truk Lagoon.”
Filled with excitement, we move
like marionettes, hanging weightlessly, not quite touching any surface.
As we breathe, the sucking sound is deafening, a high-pitched whistle on
the inhale, a lower pitched burble as the bubbles carry away the exhale.
We’re using our breath to
control our buoyancy now, we dare not kick our fins lest we might stir
up the silt and cloud our vision. One final exhale is all we need to
drop to the bottom of the ship, three levels down. Convinced that we are
about to stumble onto something big, we turn toward the stern and travel
horizontally on this level, penetrating deeper into the ship. The light
from our entry hole is no longer visible. We’re disconnected from our
escape route. The passageway narrows and we glide like ghosts, leaving
only exhaled bubbles behind. Floating in the corridor, an occasional
gentle flick of the fin is all that is needed to keep us moving through
the ship. Here we find the buried treasure.
Our lights reveal torpedoes,
which were never delivered to Japanese subs. The torpedoes are roughly
12 feet long, with red noses cones and little propellers on their tails,
just waiting to spin. They are stacked in decaying disarray, perhaps
jumbled by one of their own kind, when it ripped through this hull and
brought the ship down. “Hey Brian,” I think, “what are the odds of
one of these babies going off now?” These torpedoes were probably
going to be fired at American ships. Maybe two American divers would
suffice. We don’t touch.
I pause and turn off my light.
Brian follows suit. We play chicken with one another to see how long we
can stand total darkness in this space. This is our way of saying that
we are both scared to death but still loving this boyish adventure.
Comic relief speaks volumes underwater. It doesn’t take long before we
are smiling at one another, with lights blazing as we move on.
We turn around and head back to
the passageway out of the ship. We welcome the light from above that has
made its way down through the hull. The light guides us out to safety,
where we float suspended above the ship. We pause to view her massive
form. Perhaps not unlike the spirits of this vessel, we’ve traveled
through her passageways and now hover above her, slowly ascending to the
surface and the light. Was this the experience for her crew 55 years ago
when an American bomber descended and launched the fatal torpedo that
brought her to the bottom?
The men of this ship were willing to
die for their cause. Now I had visited their grave and risked death for
my cause too, even though my story seems petty in comparison. I was on
the edge of my comfort zone in the name of adventure and exploration. I
traveled halfway around the world to meet that edge. We all have an edge
somewhere. Too often, we turn down the opportunity to go out and examine
it, to get to know ourselves in that space of risk and discomfort, to
exercise the explorer that lives inside us all.
On this dive, Brian and I were
fundamentally a couple of little boys out exploring in the yard, making
up games, looking for treasure, playing like pioneers. There is
something to explore in every backyard. Whether it’s the wreck of an
old car in the woods or the remains of an old factory off a local
walking trail. Self-discovery is no less exciting. Some of my best
exploration has happened deep inside myself. Some has come from diving
deeper into relationships with friends and lovers. There are plenty of
exciting and dark places for each of us to explore, without ever leaving
the house.
For me, this adventure occurred
in the rusting hull of a submerged wreck halfway around the world. For
you, it may happen in a different way. When was the last time you let
your little explorer come out to play? As kids, we explore on a daily
basis. Then we grow up and stop. That little kid inside needs nurturing
to be kept alive. Otherwise, that adventurous spirit rusts away too.
