Two Wreck Big Pizza

Inside the Olympia Maru wreck.

This morning I was slightly congested with a sore throat which had me question whether I should dive or not. As usual, Sara, Erich and I met at the Sea Dive restaurant to have some coffee and a small bite to eat before going out on our dive at 8:30 AM. Like the day before, we planned on diving two WWII wrecks—the Akitsushima and Olympia Maru. This time, Chris was our dive guide. I decided to dive despite my morning congestion.

It took us close to two hours before we arrived at our dive site. Chris did his dive briefing which was better than Al’s, we geared up and jumped in the water. Once I jumped into the water, I immediately noticed that there was a strong surface current. Everyone gave the okay to descend and we did. Not far below, I had equalization problems because of my congestion and had to ascend slightly to relieve it. This posed a greater problem for me because it kept me swimming against the strong shallow current; the rest of the group was able to descend deep enough to get out of the current. Despite my best efforts to kick hard and make it to the descent line, the rest of the group faded away into the distance.

I eventually descended down to 23 meters / 76 feet which was the depth of the wreck but didn’t see anything. Visibility was so poor all I could see was grey sediment all around me. I was alone, had no clue where I was, and so decided to ascend and abort the dive. The current was so strong I surfaced a far distance from our dive boat and signaled to the crew I was okay. The hardest part now was to swim to the boat which was a little tiring especially going against a slight surface current.

Olympia Maru wreck.

Olympia Maru wreck.

The second dive at the Olympia Maru went well. There was no current and no problems as everything went as planned. Swimming through different rooms and corridors was fun like a ride at an amusement park. After the dive, we took a relaxing ride back to Sea Dive Resort. For what it was, it was a good day of diving despite missing the first dive. At least the weather was good.

Waiting on the ascent line for our deco-stops.

The bridge connecting Sea Dive to downtown Coron.

Once we got back to Sea Dive, we cleaned up and checked Internet on my laptop. Franek told me he wanted to eat dinner with us and we scheduled to eat at 7 PM at a European bistro. By 7 PM, everyone was already really hungry. Nina, Timo, Franek, Sara, Erich, and I went to the Bistro and ordered 3 large pizzas.

Sunset near Sea Dive.

Fun nighttime activities at Helldivers Bar.

The pizzas were so large they were served on food trays. The food at the bistro was delicious and not too pricey; it was definitely one of the best restaurants around. After dinner, we walked to Helldivers bar next to Sea Dive where we got a few drinks and shot pool. There, Sean and Pillon that we met on the ferry were there and we shot a few games of pool with them. Sean was by far the king of the table.


- jason