by Just back from an incredible trip to Palau with a fine bunch of hard core tek divers.
I was able to visit most of the wrecks I wrote about 10 years ago in Dive Palau – the Shipwrecks, to see what changes had happened since. In fact, there weren’t many at all – lying in a protected lagoon, the wrecks are very much still as they were.
On one day, I managed to get a 3rd dive (after dives on the 15,000grt IJN fleet oiler IRO and the requisitioned transport ship BICHU MARU) on a largely intact Corsair fighter-bomber out at west reef that wasn’t being dived when I last visited. the plane is left exactly as it was when it went down. The pilot survived the ditching, was picked up by a Catalina PBY flying boat under enemy fire – and went on to survive the war.
Here’s a short video about the wreck.
Rod Macdonald 