Truk Lagoon -- Not for the Meek: Undercurrent 02/2026

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Dear Fellow Diver,

Truk Lagoon diving is for serious wreck divers only. Many wrecks have portions well beyond 130 feet, and dives are not to be regarded lightly. "The Wreck Diving Capital of the World" is not worth a visit by a casual wreck diver or the inexperienced or pampered diver. Nondivers will find nothing to do -- or safely do -- beyond scuba diving. Truk is a wreck, a virtual wreck, on land and beneath the sea. Regardless, my two-week trip was still great!

Truk Lagoon Map With spectacular wrecks in warm (81°F to 85°F), clear, calm water, it was my bucket-list/dream-come-true dive trip. I've wanted to dive the San Francisco Maru since I got certified in the 1970s. So I dived it twice, the first a serious near-miss disaster. My second trip was my best wreck dive ever. That said, I would not consider paying to return to Truk Lagoon. Later, you will see why.

I made 28 dives over 12 days, including a reef dive and a night dive on the Heian Maru, a 510-foot-long submarine tender, covered with beautiful coral heads; lying on its side at 135-feet to the seabed, its name still visible. I dived six wrecks twice. The third dive of the day was usually a shallow plane wreck; once, at one diver's request, we made a reef dive with several large coral heads. It was a request I regret endorsing. Stay with the wrecks!

For me, I'm not sure there's any great benefit to diving from the two liveaboards there, the Thorfinn (a ratty anchored vessel with a dubious captain) or the Odyssey (I'm just talking about diving; the food and accommodations are surely better than anywhere on land). My longest commute to a dive site was 20 minutes. During one week, the Thorfinn had just one guest aboard, and the Odyssey, a sizable moving vessel, floating hotel, restaurant, and dive operation, had only five guests. (Sustainability may be an issue for the Truk liveaboards.) I stayed at the gnarly Blue Lagoon Resort, which hosted fewer than 20 divers each of the weeks of Christmas and New Year's. I once passed through the other hotel, the Truk Stop, and I saw no signs of life other than at the gift shop, which was doing a brisk business, while I was there.

The rundown Blue Lagoon Dive Shop was founded in 1973. It is among the worst dive shops I've encountered worldwide; it seems to survive on T-shirt and hat sales and $10/bored diver visits to its lame museum dedicated to the founder, Kimiuo Aisek. His grandson runs the complex, with the entire staff seemingly relatives. Many of their aluminum 80 and 100 cu. ft. tanks leaked at the valves and stems; fills were usually below 2,900 psi; they ran out of nitrox the second week. Their filthy dive gear storage room was further fouled with the remnants of a staff's whole fish lunch, which they cleaned up only after I complained that the rotting stench had clung to my gear for three days. The entire operation had a junkyard vibe. A dozen or so dive boat corpses languished in the sun along the waterfront. Outboard motors in various stages of disassembly gathered cobwebs in aging racks. Scores of out-of-service tanks cluttered the fill room. I had to be careful not to slip on the green slime thriving on the floor near the rinse tanks. I used water from the bathroom sink to flush the toilet....

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