Anybody here been to Truk?

PHXAZCRAIG wrote:

I overnighted in Guam in both directions, forced to retrieve bags due to longer-than-12-hour layover. (13 hours.)

I had to do so as well on the return, which was a 16 hr separation.

Of course they still had to deal with claim/reclaim at the first US airport. I found out how incredibly horrible it was to have to deal with only two bags in Honolulu. I think United is sucking hind tit there - they had the WORST locations, and it meant a very long slog.

yes, I have a very nasty letter brewing to United about this item, though it pales compared to the 2 cancelled TKK->GUM flights and the 3 day delay.

There is no sanity to how we walked through customs without stopping, picked up our luggage at carousel 1, and then had to walk blindly past carousel 31 to Uniteds check in terminal to then figure out where to drop it back off. The final insult is we then rechecked through security and had to walk all the way back to the same damn plane we arrived on. All told, it took about 1:15 to complete the process.

My Pelican case worked well, though I haven't yet opened it since I got home. I assume all is well inside.

I like to soak the housing in a tub for a couple of days when i return, since rarely do I get to do a decent rinsing when on site. At least make sure everything made it!

So....how did you make out with the Blue Lagoon boxspring only beds? That was rough. And the food situation was getting pretty bleak. Apparently the fresh food boat skipped them on the last pass. BL (and the island in general) was out of greens by the 15th, and BL's cheeseburger didn't appear to contain any beef at all.

But it sounds like you managed reasonably well. Truk is one of the harder spots to get to, so if that was tolerable, then Anilao is a cakewalk. Tahiti and Fiji are even easier. Solomons/PNG is on par with Truk. Only Indonesia is harder.

PHXAZCRAIG wrote:

I was one of only 3 (out of 17) divers using a single tank. I did not get to dive the San Francisco Maru because my Oceanic Islander BCD was deemed to be unable to hook a spare tank to. Not sure why, but when everyone else did that dive, I ended up on another boat with a fairly new diver. (He had neither light nor dive computer, which made the wreck penetrations interesting.)

I preferred being on the 'beginner boat', and I talked the other single-tanker to join use for the rest of the trip. On the other boat we had 35 minute dives (95-120 feet), and then had to sit for another hour and a quarter for the last diver to come up. On our own boat, we could do a hour interval and get a second morning dive in. (And take the afternoon off).

On my "liveaboard," there were 5 single tankers, 4 using doubles, 2 using CCRs.  I used quotes because the engine was broken and so we just ran skiffs out of the harbor.  I nearly cancelled and went to BL instead, though this probably would have backfired due to the large crowds they had.    I did dive the first day (5th) with them.

Masters would only allow the CCRs and 2 of the doubles folks to do the San Francisco.  I think they required Tech 60 (trimix), but not quite sure why they DQd two of the doubles folks.

The mixture was disadvantageous, but so was the use of the skiffs to do two dives at a time.  We often would double dive the same site, so we'd do our dive, sit 60, do the second.  The tech divers would do one long dive.   But in a true liveaboard scenario, we would generally have 2 hours of surface time.    As another optimization for the techies, they filled their nitrox banks with ~28%, and I usually got between 27 and 28.   30 would have been better for single tank no deco divers.   I figure I lost 10 minutes on several dives because of these two factors.

When I visited in 2011 in mid summer, it was quite slow, and for 4 of the days I was the only customer (and 2 or 3 the first two days), which meant less silt in the interiors and their 3 dive schedule and light deco meant longer dives.  But this month there were multiple expedition type groups there with as you said, A LOT of travel cases.

Made me think how dangerous it was to not have a second independent source of air in those passages. An equipment failure there could easily have me dying in 30 seconds.

eh, maybe.   (will address in your other thread)

So for almost the first time, I started modifying ISO values when I went into cargo holds. Usually ISO 500 (iso-less setting there) but sometimes 800-1000 in darker areas. Some anemone shots got me back into the ISO 64-250 range. F8 and 1/160th.

I was pretty lazy and used auto iso and A mode most of the time.   I do need to work on the button muscle memory so I can better use manual.

Never did use any of the macro stuff I brought, though there was plenty of macro to shoot if you looked. And that was just on top of the wrecks. The 14-30 with Sea and Sea IRC seemed to do quite well.

there are macro subjects, but when I reviewed the dives I did in 2011 with the macro setup, very little of it was of merit.   I think you spend most of your time trying to find a purpose.   It would be most sensible if you return to a dive site later to reshoot something you tried to get at 30mm.   In my case, as we generally did 2 sequential dives on same wreck, there wasn't a lot of repeat potential that allowed for camera rework.

I did a 2 days with the fisheye, but most of the time with the 14-35.  It was a bit more flexible for smaller stuff, at the expense of being able to do the immersive view that I can do at 11mm.

no - that's the Odyssey.    My boat- Taka aka Truk Master aka PNG or Solomons Master was so broken, it was tied to the dock at the harbor.   Hopefully their engine parts have arrived by now - they hope to set sail for Bikini shortly.

The BL spot is calm water, so it's a decent home base.   They often will moor to the deeper wrecks for the tech customers, while using the skiffs to take the rec divers elsewhere.

The Thorfinn was anchored an island to the south, closer to the center point for the main groupings of wrecks.