TeeJF
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So I've pretty much exhausted the best wrecks we dived in the Bikini Atoll lagoon... well, almost! In addition to several more dives on the aircraft carrier USS Saratoga, the destroyer USS Lamson, and the submarine USS Apogon, we also dived a transport known as a Liberrty Ship, the USS Anderson which is another destroyer, a WW1 era Dreadnought called the USS Artkansas, the battleship Nagato which was a massive 17" gun battleship and Japanese Admiral Yamamoto's flagship.
Sadly the Liberty ship was little more than a disparate jumble of steel plates inhabited by some particularly large and sinister looking sharks so we spent that much time cuddled up to the wreck avoiding exposing ourselves that I took no pictures!
The Anderson was really quite interesting, covered liberally in artifacts and relatively intact. There's a few pictures of her here including a composite shot I created by carefully aligning two photos taken from the same point several meters away from the bow of the wreck. Photo stitching was as yet a thing of the future for me so I apologise for the visible joint! My glue must have been to thick.
Finally then there are a few pictures I took on the upside down battleship Nagato including some of her huge 17" main armament taken as we swam underneath the decks. I was so narced (nitrogen in your breathing air is highly narcotic below 28 metres and you feel horribly drunk) that I detached myself from our party at one point and swam off with the first group heading the other way. I also tasted a metallic edge to my air and took my valve out to swill it at 50 metres quite forgetting that human beans can't breath water very well! narcs are a really bad thing when you're diving and I have never got used to them in well over 34 years of on and off diving. Thank God for mixed gas which removes the problem and is readily available nowadays.
The piccies...
The destroyer USS Anderson...
The USS Anderson at sea...
A composite shot of her bows created the old fashioned way!
Secondary armaments...
The loading hatches on Anderson's midships torpedo tubes.
Swimming towards Anderson's stern.
The paint on this deck hatch is still in really could condition despite several atomic bombs going off and 60 years immersion in salt water!
At the stern now, here are the rudder and props.
Time to leave and head back up to the surface. The cage on the stern is a depth charge rack.
Yamamoto's flagship, the battleship IJNS Nagato...
Almost down on the seabed and I hadn't a clue at this point what I was taking photos off because I was so puddled with the narcs
Part of the bridge structure lying upside down and just about stopping the battleship from rolling all the way over.
This is Admiral Yamamoto's fighting bridge just about as high as you can get on the superstructure.
But it has broken away and lies on it's side now on the seabed close to the hull of the ship.
Odd to think that Yamamoto may have been standing in this small room atop his flagship as he gave the command "Tora, Tora, Tora" to initiate the attack on Pearl Harbour.
Personally though I would be prepared to put money on it that he was actually in some sumptuous lounge way down below!
We are swimming completely underneath the forward part of the wreck past the first of the 17" guns.
TJ usually suffers narcs far more than me but on this occasion she was in tip top form and looking after me!
Highlighted in the torch beam, this is the end cover for a 17" gun barrel used to weatherproof it in stormy seas. It is known as a "tampion".
Prolific fish life on the wreck.
TJ emerging after a short swim through the interior of the wreck. She had just gone in to what was known as a bomb flat,
a room where ammunition for the AA guns was un-loaded from an ordnance lift and fused ready for firing by the adjacent AA guns.
Hope you enjoyed these few wrecks from Bikini Atoll, thanks for looking.
A composite shot of her bows created the old fashioned way!
Secondary armaments...
The loading hatches on Anderson's midships torpedo tubes.
Swimming towards Anderson's stern.
The paint on this deck hatch is still in really could condition despite several atomic bombs going off and 60 years immersion in salt water!
At the stern now, here are the rudder and props.
Time to leave and head back up to the surface. The cage on the stern is a depth charge rack.
Yamamoto's flagship, the battleship IJNS Nagato...
Almost down on the seabed and I hadn't a clue at this point what I was taking photos off because I was so puddled with the narcs
Part of the bridge structure lying upside down and just about stopping the battleship from rolling all the way over.
This is Admiral Yamamoto's fighting bridge just about as high as you can get on the superstructure.
But it has broken away and lies on it's side now on the seabed close to the hull of the ship.
Odd to think that Yamamoto may have been standing in this small room atop his flagship as he gave the command "Tora, Tora, Tora" to initiate the attack on Pearl Harbour.
Personally though I would be prepared to put money on it that he was actually in some sumptuous lounge way down below!
We are swimming completely underneath the forward part of the wreck past the first of the 17" guns.
TJ usually suffers narcs far more than me but on this occasion she was in tip top form and looking after me!
Highlighted in the torch beam, this is the end cover for a 17" gun barrel used to weatherproof it in stormy seas. It is known as a "tampion".
Prolific fish life on the wreck.
TJ emerging after a short swim through the interior of the wreck. She had just gone in to what was known as a bomb flat,
a room where ammunition for the AA guns was un-loaded from an ordnance lift and fused ready for firing by the adjacent AA guns.
Hope you enjoyed these few wrecks from Bikini Atoll, thanks for looking.