Travel & Scuba Gear, Camera Choices for Truk Lagoon
As I begin writing I am on a United Airlines flight to Guam. I’ll spend two nights there, then on to Truk (Chuuk) Lagoon where I will spend a week aboard the Truk Odyssey. This will be my first time diving in Truk Lagoon. It’s a trip I’ve wanted to make as long as I have been diving.
Dive travel is part of my work, so I am fortunate to visit a lot of amazing places. Until now, Truk Lagoon has been a “someday” destination. I am excited about it. I think very few divers are unaware of this Micronesian archipelago, which was the site of a final, devastating attack on Imperial Japan’s naval fleet.
Operation Hailstone took place over the 17th and 18th of February in 1944. At the time, Japan used Truk’s sheltered waters for repairs and as a staging site for executing its war efforts throughout the Pacific. During those two days, Allied forces sunk over 60 Japanese ships. To this day, their holds contain live ammunition, tanks and aircraft, including the infamous Mitsubishi Zero. A few sites still hold human remains.
Preparing for dive travel to Truk Lagoon
Admittedly, I don’t know the details of the Pacific war as well as I’d like, but many of these ships were critical to Japan’s ability to engage in battle. After over 80 years on the bottom, decay has taken a toll on many of the wrecks. There is still a lot to explore, but the time is now. My journey began with as much research as I could fit around my demanding work schedule.
In general, divers tend to be a curious group. I recommend any diver (or traveler of any kind for that matter) will almost certainly enjoy a richer travel experience by researching the history and culture of a destination. For Truk, I can’t imagine not studying beforehand.
This dive trip is all about capturing images and a fair amount of video. In some ways, it will be a portfolio project for me. Given the rigid space and weight considerations, I had to make careful decisions about what gear to bring. My first priority was underwater photography and videography. Next, I had to choose my dive gear, and finally, what to wear and other personal items.
Truk Lagoon Underwater Photography Equipment Choices
Truk scuba diving revolves around those shipwrecks. It was not too difficult a decision to leave my macro gear at home. Bringing it would have required me to pack an additional lens and port. by themselves, these aren’t particularly heavy or large, but leaving them made room for more lighting, which I believe will pay off in my images.
I’ll write more about my camera system, but the main components are Olympus EM1 MKii camera bodies, Isotta underwater housing and ports along with Sea and Sea strobes. I shoot Olympus because, to me, Olympus makes the best lens available for underwater photography, the 8mm f/1.8 PRO series fisheye. My entire underwater camera system is built around that lens.
Lighting is going to be key. I grappled between bringing my favorite Keldan video lights, or Kraken 8,000 lumen video lights. I can fit both with ambient filters. The Keldan video lights are more powerful at 11,000 lumens, but quite a bit larger.
The clincher in favor of Kraken is their ability to fire as strobes using the same optical sync cables as my actual strobes. The ability to change from flash to continuous light in the wreck environment, I believe, may turn out to be a game changer. We’ll see.
Additionally, I’ll diving with the ubiquitous GoPro and a housed Insta360. I believe a lot of my ability to capture striking images will be my ability to place light where I want them. So, in addition to the camera and lighting equipment itself, I’ve brought along an assortment of ULCS tripods and other mounting options. It’s a lot to pack.
Dive Gear Choices for Truk Lagoon
This pained me. I really, really, REALLY wanted to bring a rebreather. But, I would have been the only CCR diver on the boat. That would have put me on a very different cadence compared to the other divers. Instead, I only took sidemount gear. This will provide ample gas for the deeper, technical dive sites and is much simpler to manage.
My travel sidemount rig is a harness I devised using mostly webbing and d-rings, plus a SubGravity Diamond (17lb lift) triangle-shaped wing. It is incredibly compact. I’ve thought about making the harness available as a kit. I’ll write about it one day. It’s very cool.
That, along with two Hollis DC3 first stages, and whatever second stages they came with, actually fit into a large regulator bag. I brought a couple deco regs just in case. One is O2 clean, one isn’t. Both deco regs are Apeks (O2 clean XTX40, and an XTX50).
I also brought two Shearwater Petrel dive computers, two Mako Minimus masks, a pair of ScubaPro Travel Go Fins with their thin, low top Go Dive booties (I don’t remember what they call them) and an Oceanic roll-up snorkel I jam into a pocket.
My traveling dive gear for Truk was a lot easier to gather and pack, once I ruled out the rebreather. The real challenge is camera equipment and I am nearly certain I will wish I had some items I chose to leave behind. I am also certain I brought gear I won’t use.
Getting to Truk Lagoon
Normally, I like to fly on American Airlines because I have attained their coveted and prestigious “platinum” status. For that, I get better seating options and two free checked bags. United charged me $100 for EACH additional checked item, both directions! That’s insane! As an airline, United is ok, I guess. I used to like air travel, but I really don’t anymore.
From Reno, the first hop was a sleepy, 6am flight to San Francisco. I’m on the Honolulu leg now, which is not quite 5 torturous hours. But, it took an extra hour waiting to take off, so there’s that.
The final hop is the longest at around 7 hours. That’s just Guam. I’ll spend two nights there before a short flight to the Chuuk Lagoon airport. I suspect it’ll be quite small. I’ll report back about what getting through Customs is like. Probably easy.
The Truk Odyssey Live-aboard Dive Boat
So far, I only know what the Truk Odyssey is like from conversations and photos—mostly on their so-so website. Given that, I’ll continue this after I’ve made it to the boat…