I asked Rob for a good wreck for my 600th dive and he certainly delivered. The San Francisco Maru was built in 1919 as a medium freighter. She had been in semi-retirement when the war started, but was used by the Japanese navy for carrying cargo.
She was fully loaded in February 1944 when she was bombed as part of Operation Hailstone. Apparently photographs show her stern on fire. She sank upright in over 60 metres of water. This makes her quite deep, so there is not a lot of coral on her. The water around is generally quite clear and she is a very popular wreck. She is certainly one of my favourites.
Uncle Bill was someone who has helped both Rita and myself over the years and he was well known to several of the people on the trip. Sadly he died last year, and while a keen diver, he had never visited Truk. So we chose this dive to scatter his ashes on one of the prettiest wrecks in the lagoon.
There is a mooring line which seems to be tied to an anchor line on the port side of the bow. We went down that and swam along the deck from the picturesque bow gun, towards the superstructure. The first hold used to be full of hemispherical mines but unfortunately fishermen have been taking them to use in dynamite fishing. As s a result there are a lot less mines there than I’d seen on previous visits. After that disappointment, we carried on past the second hold, which has a number of trucks and barrels inside.
On the deck just in front of the superstructure are 3 Type 95 “Ha-Go” light tanks. One is on the port side, and two are on the starboard side, where one appears to be mounting the other. They were being carried as deck cargo and must have been thrown about quite violently as the ship sank.
We only had enough bottom time to tour the forward half of the ship, and after too short a time, we had to turn around and head back to the line. It was a great dive on a lovely wreck.
San Francisco Maru
- Displacement: 5,864 tons
- Length: 385 feet
- Beam: 51 feet
- Engine: 1 steam/coal fired engine
- Depth: 40 -60 m.
Our Dive
- Depth: 51.1 m.
- Time: 44 minutes
- Gas: Air plus Nitrox 50 stage
Graphic courtesy of Captain Lance Higgs of S.S. Thorfinn.
