Enjoy your trip. Hope you have as much fun as I had.
Just FYI, I thoroughly enjoyed my dive trips to the Solomons, the Philippines and to Chuuk/Truk, but I must say that Bikini was in a class by itself – at least when I dove it in November 2000. And, that is why it is still fun to reminisce. When I add it all up: the wrecks, the history, the location, the warm water, the good visibility and its beauty, I still consider Bikini to be the most “high voltage” dive trip that I have taken. The saying at the time was that Bikini is like Truk on steroids, and I agreed. If you want to see what topside Bikini looked like in 2000, just follow the link below to the ScubaBoard Photo Gallery. The video we had made of us diving the wrecks is too large to post in the Photo Gallery.
When we dove Bikini the dive operation was land based. We were a group of six divers from Kwajalein - a short flight for us. We all thoroughly enjoyed the trip. The standard one week package back then was twelve dives. Before the trip we spent time studying the nuclear testing at Bikini, along with the history of the ships - which was a lot and very interesting - and this greatly added to the fulfillment of the diving.
In the past, the chamber at Kwajalein was allowed to be used for a Bikini diver who had some problems, but I do not know about now. If a diver is comfortable at depth (e.g. would not hesitate if they have to clear their mask at 180 feet,) such diver should probably be at ease for the standard Bikini diving. We had no problems diving on air. We had some fun times hanging out on the deco bar, so that did not bother us. Back then most of us did not have dive computers that allowed us to switch gas underwater to the oxygen-enriched air provided by the dive boat on the deco bar, so deco times on the bar were long.
We did our checkout dive on the bridge of the Saratoga (best checkout dive ever); but unfortunately, I have heard this dive may no longer be available (?). What they called the “Haunted House” dive through the Saratoga’s hangar bay was very electrifying, but also heard that this exact dive may no longer be available (?).
Our AIr Marshall Island plane did break down on the day we were supposed to leave; resulting in us getting for free one extra dive. We ended up taking a ship (the Great Bridge) back to Kwajalein - a 24 hour trip. It was actually a very suitable way to end an exotic trip. The ship had arrived from Kwaj on a mission related to the radiation monitoring taking place around Bikini - there were no problems with background levels of radiation back then.
Great memories! Can't believe it has almost been twenty years.
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The Great Bridge at Bikini – our ride home.
