Tech Trip Report "Going down on Sara"

[Heavy Breather]

Going down on Sara”
TDI Bikini Atoll Expedition
Sept 4 / 2004

For five years now I’ve been planning a trip to Bikini Atoll to dive the only dive-able aircraft carrier in the world, USS Saratoga. I see this is soon to change, as there are plans to sink one as an artificial reef, however that eventuality will not be the same thing.
TDI Canada had put a trip together for Sept 4/ 2004. Though we had planned for an all Rebreather trip a year ago the final group was half open circuit and half CCR divers.

As we flew over azure seas to the island of Bikini with puffy white storm cells rising up ahead of us, I could not thinking that it was a similar looking cloud that changed the destiny of these islands that we on our way to visit.

Bikini Atoll is 1 of 29 atolls that make up the Marshall Island group and in itself has five Islands that make up its own ring. The Marshall Islands occupies 37500 square miles, and is situated 4 degrees north of the Equator. It lies 4500 miles SW from San Francisco, approximately 2500 miles straight east of the Philippines. It was first discovered by the Spanish, and was a source of Copra.

Operation Crossroads was the first of many nuclear tests done in the Pacific.
It first began back in 1946 when the United States removed the Bikinian people from their islands for these tests. Several other test areas included Johnston Atoll, and Eniwetok. The smallest test was .02 Kilo tons (an equivalent of 20,000 tons of TNT) and the largest was a 50 Mega-ton blast (that’s an equivalent of 50 million tons of TNT) called Bravo. The effects of the Bravo crater can still be seen today in the sea floor, if you fly over that area.

The ones that concern us were named “Able”, and “Baker”.
Excerpts taken from “Ghost Fleet, the Sunken Ships of Bikini Atoll” by James P. Delgato.

“Able was the first test. It was an air burst test. It’s yield was 19 Kilo tons and was dropped at 9:00 AM July 1st, from a modified B-29 bomber named “Dave’s Dream”. It missed its target by 2100 feet and detonated away from the target ship USS Nevada and its zero point ended up being 150 feet off the starboard bow of the USS Gilliam.
After falling 48 seconds from 32,000 feet the bomb exploded 518 feet above the lagoon’s surface. The New York Time’s account of the blast claimed that the flash was “ten times as bright as the sun”. The heat converted all matter in the area into a gaseous form that instantly expanded within the next millisecond into a spherical, luminous “ball of fire.”
In the next half second the ball continued to grow to 1500 yards in diameter, engulfing the USS Gilliam and vaporized the seawater below it. As the ball of fire collapsed, a cloud of vapor, reddish-brown and loaded with nitrous acid and nitrogen oxide, rose above the lagoon at a speed of two hundred miles and hour. Neutrons streaming from the fireball struck the ships and the water ionizing them and creating intense but short-lived radioactivity. Traveling a mile a second, the shock wave swept outward like an expanding doughnut out racing the fireball’s own expansion, and smashed into the ships as it raced over the water. Dark clouds of dust and soot shot into the sky from the collapsing smoke stacks of the ships within the lethal zone. The B-29 bomber “Dave’s Dream” was several miles away and was hit twice by the shock wave.
The lagoon surface was pushed downward several feet by the blast. This caused a secondary effect of pushing the explosion higher up in the atmosphere and another type of shock wave known as the Mach effect. Three seconds after the detonation it was nearly a mile away from the zero point and towered 185 feet high creating 165 mile an hour winds that tore across the atoll.
At ten seconds the hot gaseous fireball rose, drawing air up into “after-winds” that sucked up water and debris forming the stem and the top of the famous mushroom cloud.
Thirty seconds after the detonation, the mushroom cloud was a mile and a half high.
As it condensed over the next ten minutes the vapor formed a light radioactive rain that fell over Bikini Atoll. Despite the deadly rain, “officials” reported “the radiation levels on the ships as minimal.” This they had attributed to dispersion in the atmosphere and gradual diffusion in the rain. After thirty minutes two PBM seaplanes flew into and around the atoll checking for radiation levels while wearing gas masks inside the stifling sealed aircraft. Support ships were entering the lagoon by 2:30 PM (5.5 hours) that afternoon, but many ships were too hot to approach.”


So the Able blast sank a few ships. Scorched some, burnt a few others however it didn’t obliterate the test fleet as was expected.

The second test, Baker (a yield of 23 kilotons) on the other hand was suspended beneath a ship in a water tight Caisson (shell). This was designed to be an underwater burst, which in turn caused a giant tidal wave to roll across the Bikini basin.
It vaporized the sea floor and caused millions of tons of radioactive ionized seawater and pulverized radioactive coral to thunder down onto the test ships. Some sank immediately under the onslaught, while others like Sara took the 100-ft tidal wave across the starboard beam, and rolled over onto her side. She recovered with a list, spilling fuel, and was heavily damaged along the forward flight deck and bridge.

The Baker Blast is best described by Ernest Peterkin in, “Ghost Fleet, the sunken ships of Bikini Atoll” by James P. Delgato.

“Triggered by the signals, the bomb detonated to form a fireball that illuminated the water for a millionth of a second with a white-orange light. The fireball now a high-pressure bubble of superheated gas, erupted from the surface of the lagoon. The spout and mushroom shot upward. A mass of steam and water mounded up into a spray dome that climbed at a rate of 2500 ft / second into a column. The center of the 975 foot thick column was a nearly hollow void of superheated steam that rose faster than the more solid 300 foot thick water sides, climbing 11000 feet per second and acting as a chimney for the hot gases of the fireball. The gases mixed with excavated lagoon bottom and the radioactive materials formed a cauliflower-shaped mushroom cloud atop the column. Four seconds after detonation the column was 4100 feet high. At sixty seconds, it rose to 7600 feet. Within the column and cloud went two million tons of vaporized and boiling water, including at least two million cubic yards of sand and pulverized coral from the sea bottom.
The blast excavated a 700-yard wide, 20-foot deep, crater in the ocean floor.
The force of the eruption and the shock of the blast formed a “blast slick” of white water in a rapidly advancing circle of millions of water droplets hurtled into the air. At the same time, as the spray dome erupted into a full column, it was obscured by a vast cloud of condensation—known as the “Wilson Cloud” that formed eighteen seconds after detonation and then dispersed into a ring of wispy clouds that vanished after thirty seconds had elapsed. The blast was recorded thousand of miles away on the mainland of USA as an earthquake of 5.5 on the Richter scale.
The shock wave sweeping through the water also induced pressures at 90 feet that equaled those of more than a mile down. The USS Pilotfish, closet submarine to the blast had every bulkhead ruptured as the air inside was squeezed out by a peak pressure of 5200 PSI. Air and water punched through the bow built to withstand the repeated hammering of enemy depth charges.
The shock wave on the surface was equal to a four-Kiloton blast, hitting and damaging an aircraft flying at 10,000 feet overhead. The first shock wave and the erupting force of the column created a series of waves that swept across the lagoon at 45 knots (52 miles an hour), smashing into the anchored ships. The first wave 84 feet high slammed into the Saratoga and Arkansas seven seconds after the detonations. Thirteen seconds later a 47-foot high wave hit them, followed by a 24 foot wave 47 seconds after the blast. Followed by ever decreasing size of waves. Bikini Island was swept by a 15-foot tidal wave that dragged and pounded the landing craft moored to concrete blocks up on it shore. As the sound of the rumble made it’s way to the support ships outside the atoll, the two million ton column succumbed to the forces of gravity. As it collapsed with a tremendous roar, a doughnut shaped cloud of water droplets poured out as a fluid across the lagoon. Moving as speeds of 45 miles an hour the base surge of highly radioactive fog rolled into the ships, drenching them with 10,000 roentgen spray. (A fatal dose is assumed to be 400 roentgens per twenty-four hours).
As it blew past the fleet the dense fog lifted, exposing a cluster of listing, half-sunk, ships in a pool of water that was as hot as 8300 tons of radium. At that moment, Bikini was the deadliest spot on the planet”

gs- I’ll skip forward a bit.

“Below the surface however a four to eight foot thick layer of contaminated sediments coated the bottom. The result of 500,000 tons of pulverized coral that fell back into the lagoon.”

As you can see he painted a very vivid portrait of the event in real time. You have to remember this was back in 1946.
Further note: After the blast Divers doing survey work gave unsubstantiated reports that the sludge was bluish and had the consistency of Jelly.
“For the Good of Mankind”.

 

[Heavy Breather]

Part Two Of Bikini Report

In July of 1946 the allied scientists and the USA sent a fleet of over 200 ships to the Bikini Atoll for the tests. Some of these were support ships that would be used for personnel and equipment transfer to the Islands.
During the course of the tests some 22 ships were sunk and 73 others were so badly irradiated that it was necessary to scuttle or sink them.
Some were sunk at Bikini Atoll; some were towed to Kwajalein Atoll; later sunk and or scuttled.
The USS New York and the USS Nevada were returned to Pearl Harbor for further decontamination however they were considered too “Hot” and were sunk off Oahu in deep water. The US Navy had used many others for target practice as well.
The USS Independence was towed State side and was used for scientific study and repeated attempts to decontaminate it proved useless. It was towed out to the Farallones Islands, torpedoed and it sank in 3000 feet of water on January 27 1951. It was the last ship to be sunk as a result of the Operation Crossroads Test.

Rather than delve into the politics, attitudes, and lifestyles of the Marshalleese people, and their hope for an eternity of compensation for the loss of their island, I will focus on the dives and the Battleships we visited there.

Please note that while the first week we had eleven divers, the second week it was just myself. The second week reflects a similar scenario to cave dives with a team of three, and sometimes just two, the DM Jim Akroyd and myself.

After landing at island of Enyo and transferring our gear to the boats we cruised across the lagoon to the island of Bikini, settled into our rooms, had a dive briefing, and assembled our rigs for the checkout dive.

For those of you who are not familiar with this operation, here every dive is a deco dive. The dive boats provides surface supplied EANX 75 % for those on open circuit on the multi-level Deco bar.
Standard configuration for the OC divers was twin 85 cu ft Steel tanks.
The Back Gas was air; Deco gas on surface supplied 75% EANX. Run times were approximately 90 mins. This gives a four hour surface interval.

CCR divers had the option of carrying Steel 45cu ft for air Bailout.

You may ask why we did not use any Helium while out there? Cost, availability, shipping, reliability.
The supply ship comes just three times a year so you have to ship the heavy stuff well in advance. Our Sorb did not arrive while we were there. It got lost in Majuro (go figure?). We were able to track down only one keg of sorb and that was hidden in the housekeeping closet. Fortunately there was some left over from a previous expedition. Many thanks to Jeffrey Bozanic to whom we owe a bottle of single malt.

Oh yeah, getting back to the helium.
The dives were doable at these depths, (warm water, no current, good viz, penetration dives set to 150 feet max). The narcosis levels for the CCR divers were somewhat higher than usual, due to the minute amount of Argon byproduct from the Oxygen generating process. We ended up with 96% Oxygen for use in our CCR tanks. We used air for the diluent tanks. Yes, there were a couple of moments where the narcosis was right up there. It usually gets me at 185 ft, then it seems to become tolerable after few minutes. Maybe it’s just my brain trying to cope with the reduced synapses.

The dives were kept to a set run time, as that would allow for a decent surface interval to fill the twins and be back in the water by 3:30 PM. The last dive of the day was timed to have every one out of the water before 5:30 PM.
Several reason for this. There are loads of sharks in Bikini and they tend to be aggressive before dusk.
Any extended deco time after dark with a few sharks cruising around and the deco bar becomes a snack bar. If you catch my drift?
Yes, there were sharks on every dive and some have taken up permanent housing in the hanger deck of the Saratoga. There was even a big stingray that had a mean disposition on one particular afternoon dive on the Apogon. Yes, it was female!


Highlights of some of the wrecks and diving depths:

-USS Lamson - DD #367. 341.3 feet in overall length
160 ft to the main deck. 3 dives
The Lamson is a welded steel Destroyer, 341 feet long and sits upright on the seabed. She was sunk by Able, the first blast. She was carrying 50% ordinance as well as 50% fuel capacity. This is probably the most photogenic wreck due to its upright position and armaments. It carried test (blast towers) instruments on the bow, as well as four .50 caliber machine guns, two rear depth charge racks, “K” type depth charge projectors, three 21 inch Torpedo launchers, 5” main guns, Anti-Aircraft Guns, depth charges. There are endemic species of fish here as well as lots of whip, and hard corals, each loaded with tiny brilliantly colored fish. The ability to see the ships and guns for themselves is what makes this type of diving different from Truk Lagoon.
There is a small penetration into the engine compartment on this wreck. The Bow is covered in long strands of whip coral that gives the ship a bearded look. The anchor chain was torn out of the hawser hole through the hull towards the bow when the blast ripped her away from her anchor. There is a heavy depression on the main deck that looks like a giant fist had punched downward caving in the deck just aft of the bridge. The armored gun turret shields on the starboard side have been peeled away like twisted beer can. The topside structure, stacks, mainmast and bridge were all torn away with the blast. It appears that after “Able” it might have slid down the reef to her present position or the surge from Baker pushed her down the reef. There are dishes, and plates that can be seen lying half way up the reef.

 

[Heavy Breather]

Part three Bikini trip

USS Saratoga CV #3 Aircraft Carrier. 888 feet end to end of the flight deck.
180ft under the props to 47ft to top of Bridge Gun Directors. Flight deck is at 100feet, Penitration dives 140 ft plus.

The Saratoga is one of the most famous and dived wrecks in Bikini. Identified as CV3. She was the first of six “Lexington Class” Carrier Vessels to be built.
She swung on her anchor to within 300 yards of the Baker zero point due to wind drifting and slack mooring lines, though originally set further out on the picket to allow for better photographic opportunity.
Milliseconds after the Baker blast went off, Sara rose on the bubble or spray dome, tore free from her anchors, and rolled. The second wave slammed into the starboard side of the ship sweeping the aircraft, forklift, truck and test equipment off her decks as well as slamming the Helldivers around inside her hanger deck. The forklift ended up in one of the gun tubs along side the 40 MM Anti-Aircraft guns.
The lethal zone was determined to be within the 1000 yard radius of the Baker bomb suspended beneath the LSM – 60. That ship was vaporized. All that remained of the LSM - 60 was radioactive globules of metal that landed on the Prinz Eugen nearly a mile away.
During the first week the external dives were broken into Bow, Bridge, and Stern. This ship is so huge you cannot do it all on one dive. There is one lined, quasi-penetration dive allowed for the first week divers, called the Haunted House. It is a fairly large area that runs the perimeter of the Hanger deck. The center of the Hanger deck has collapsed a great deal, however there is still a lot to see. Bombs strewn about. Torpedoes fallen off of their trolleys, wedged up in the walls. Ariel bombs in racks lying on the hanger deck. There are “Hell Diver” aircraft tucked into the corner where they came to rest after the first blast. Their engines have fallen off and they resemble pile of rubble now. Parts of wings, tires, shrouds, and fuselage. The gauges are still visible in the cockpit.

Silt is a real issue in this wreck. Some places in the outer passages there are several feet of it. It’s very fine and take a couple days to settle out again. Jim and I did several lined dive into the Marine Living Quarters, Chief Petty Officer Quarters, Captains Quarters, Scullery, Admirals Quarters, Pantry and through the Combat Information Center. We did it again later and cut through to the General Workshop, Blacksmith and Coppersmith shop and it was still clear.
On another dive we broke into Admiral Halsey’s desk but found nothing but charcoal. There is a separate cabinet for him that contains all his dishes and cutlery. On one dive I found the wine decanter fused solid with rust and silt into the bottom.
The Combat Information Center (CIC) is the nerve center for combat. Radar, radios and plotting tables.
I saw that any wood item that did not have a coat of lacquer on it turned to mush. However steel tables and benches and radios were clearly identifiable.
The radio tubes stick out of the silt amongst the cabinets like glass fingers and you can swim over the Radar Screen and peer into it. It has a spider web pattern in the glass to indicate range and vector. There was a glass-topped bench that had at one time lights that shone up under the charts. Very similar to an E-6 slide table we use today. The Chart tables and chart cabinets were all crumbled down to dust now.
The strangest thing was the intense damage cause by the nuclear blasts on the exterior of the ship and perfectly intact light bulbs, radio tubes and fine dishes just feet away.
Another dive got us into the dentistry with their archaic drills that run off of belts and pulleys. There are still tiny vials of anaesthetic sitting in the cabinet drawers. There were three chairs waiting for patients, and the porcelain spit sinks were still intact. There was only room for one of us in there at a time as the access was tight and would silt out in a second.
Some of the accesses to these lines are through airshafts. The exit out of the living quarters into the Air Office required me to remove my bailout and shove it through. Nearly anything Big Jim could get through, I could get through with my CCR. I say nearly. There was one point going out the vent shaft into the blower room where I heard Jim laughing through his regulator. I was having a third go of it when he pointed to the BIG exit just over my shoulder to the right. I could have made it the other way. I just had to roll side ways to the right angle to swim through. Oh well.

The main line penetration leads through officer’s country taking you through the mess room and bunkroom, toilets and shower rooms. There are rifle racks running around the perimeter of the rooms, the steel cots are jumbled up in a pile. There is stuff lying around on the floor. Flashlights, Fire Extinguishers, watch cups. There are few personal effects as the sailors would have removed them when departing.
Some areas have a lot of wires hanging down and many rooms have oil floating on the ceiling. Rusticles hang like hollow fingers all over the place and get down the back of your suit. Hot pipes were clad in asbestos back then and the canvas wrap had deteriorated exposing the asbestos, so that also caused silting when disturbed.
One of the benefits of CCR’s in side the wrecks is no bubbles to dislodge the rust and ruin the viz. This is one of the bane’s of the Open Circuit divers
Sara was no slouch when it came to armament either. She carried eight paired 38-caliber guns set up in two forward and two aft houses. Twelve single 5”/38-caliber machine guns and 24 Bofors anti-aircraft guns, fifty-two 20-mm Oerlikon anti-aircraft guns, 5”/38 caliber D.P twin mount guns. Twelve Mk 51 gun fire-control directors.

-USS Arkansas – Dreadnought Destroyer-Flagship. A riveted steel vessel 562 feet long
170 ft to the aircastle
The Battlewagon USS Arkansas was launched in 1911. “Arkie” fought in both world wars. In WW1 she escorted convoys, and bombarded the German shore positions at Omaha Beach and Cherbourg. She ended WW2 by shelling Iwo Jima, and Okinawa, then ferrying troops home after the war. She was the first casualty of the Baker blast, sinking in little more than a second.
Prior to the “Able” blast she was fitted with blast gauge towers, test equipment, and test ordinance. A 90mm howitzer was bolted to the deck. Her standard armaments were three 5”/51caliber MK 143 guns on single mounts, 40 mm AA guns, 12” guns. The Arkansas sits upside down in 180 feet of water. Lost within seconds, “Arkie” was smashed down into the seabed by “Baker”. With less than 500 yards from Baker’s zero point she was the closest ship to the suspended bomb other than the LSM-60 that held it. When the Baker bomb detonated, the blast crushed the hull upwards and caused the ship to flip onto its port side. The pulverized coral and falling water column then hammered it down into the sea floor. There is very little space between the sea floor and the main deck of the ship.

 

[Heavy Breather]

Part four, Bikini report

-HMJS Nagato – Japanese Flagship 708 feet overall length
179 feet at the stern, 170 feet at the bow in the sand

A scalloped hull vessel built for speed with armor belting 3.9” thick up-wards to 11.8” with 14 inches of armor on the turrets. She cruised at 26.7 knots and had a crew of 1333 men and fought in the battle of Marianas, Leyte Gulf, and Samar.
An infamous ship, the Nagato, in that the plans for the attack on Pearl Harbor was crafted within her bridge. The signal relayed “Tora, Tora, Tora,” was sent to this ship’s radio room to inform Admiral Yamamoto that the attack on Pearl had been successful. That initiating a turning point, in which the reluctant Americans were forced into an active role in the war.
Captured at war’s end in Tokyo Bay on August 30, 1945, the Nagao was brought to Bikini to symbolize the complete and unconditional surrender of the Imperial Japanese Navy. It was designed to as an insult to a people who has seen two nuclear blasts on their own soil and their now famous Flagship was to fall to yet another. The Nagato was already heavily damaged prior to being brought over for the tests. Small teams of sailors kept the ship afloat long enough for the crossing and the tests.
Pictures show damage from an arial bomb that tore through the bridge structure close to the main deck. The pictures indicate twisted crossbars between windows and canted decks leading up to the top gun directors. This is significant only that the bridge structure broke off when Nagato hit the sea floor. This resulted in a nearly clean cut of the bridge section from the main deck. The bridge lays neatly perpendicular to the line of the hull.

The armament of the Nagato consisted of eight 16inch/45 caliber guns, twenty 5.5”/50 caliber guns, four 3.1 inch anti-aircraft guns, three machine guns, and eight torpedo tubes. Four above and four below. Sixty-eight 25 mm guns. The gun directors were a hundred feet off the main deck. This ship could shoot over the horizon, therefore the higher the gun director form the deck the better the aim for those “over the horizon shots”.
The Nagato sank a few days after the Baker blast. It is rumored to have been helped a little during the night. We did not find any torpedo holes that would indicate that happened, however it wouldn’t be all that hard to open a few seacock valves now would it? It’s one of those little mysteries.
There is some penetration into the stern area, very limited and nothing to see there. This ship was stripped of effects and stores prior to sailing to Bikini. In other words, whatever wasn’t nailed down was hauled away. From a break in the main deck there is good access into the galley and you can still see the giant rice cookers bolted to the floor (ceiling now), Light fixtures are still intact. There is some more exploring to be done in the forward compartments, but time is short due to depth.
Diving along under this ship give a sense of awe. You just can’t grasp the size of it. The 16 inch Guns are immense. The draping anchor chains are huge. Once you swim under the main forward deck there is enough ambient light all around the ship that gives it a surreal crude beauty.

-USS Anderson – Destroyer 180 ft under the guns
Honorable mention to the Anderson as she was an Escort/Screen ship for the Sister of Sara, “Lexington”. Anderson then fought during the battle of the Coral Sea when the carrier Lexington had sank. It helped screen the carrier Yorktown at the battle of Midway, then was sent to protect the carrier USS Wasp on September 14, 1942. I hope you begin to see a pattern here. This Destroyer took the brunt of shells and dive-bombers who would try to penetrate the protection of the Carrier group. It was Anderson’s job to “take one for the team”. Anderson fought back and forth across the pacific from Midway to Layte Gulf, survived kamikaze attacks that killed 18 and wounded 29 of her crew. She suffered great damage, only to be repaired, refit and sent out into the battle again. She saw four Carriers Vessels die during the course of her career and finally died with Saratoga.
She lies on her port side in 180 feet of water. Blast gauge towers jut out into the sand. One dive was committed to opening the forward deck hatch and the forward magazine hatch. This leaves room to explore the forward compartments on the next trip.


-USS Apogon - Submarine Diesel/Electric 312 feet long overall 47.2 feet high
165 feet to the base of the sail deck.
The Apogon was a welded and riveted high tensile steel submarine of the Balao Class, capable of diving to 400 feet. She was part of the group called the Mickey Finns. This boat’s primary armaments were the ten 21inch torpedo tubes, consisting of six, forward and four aft.
24 Mark torpedoes, a single 5” /25 caliber deck gun. She was moored and suspended 100 feet from the surface, and was neutrally weighted bow and stern and could be floated by injecting air inside the ballast tanks with no crew onboard the sub. Apogon was 850 yards from Baker’s zero point.
Navy Divers found the Apogon in 180 feet of water, leaking fuel oil and air bubbles.
All compartments were flooded with the exception of the conning tower. All bulkheads were ruptured and the pressure hull gave way in the forward torpedo room. There is a hatch open to the forward torpedo room that you can stick your head and shoulder into but that’s it. You can see the steel mesh from the bunks lying on top of the torpedoes. It was common for the crew to sleep within inches of live munitions. The bunks would fold up out of the way.
Still visible today are the gun directors, binnacle, and compass instruments. The external deck plates have rotted off the top of the hull exposing the pressure hull beneath and the forward tube runs, to the outer sea hatches.

Over the course of two weeks, I did 14 dives on and inside Saratoga, 3 dives on and inside the Nagato, and 2 on the Anderson. There are other ships to dive in Bikini however they are similar to the Liberty ships sunk elsewhere in the world. There are nine regular ships that are visited here. We felt that the best use of our time was to dive on the Battleships, as they are the most impressive and historic. Big guns are always cool!

In the next five years at the latest I expect the deck of the Sara to collapse down and prevent any further penetration dives. The Dive Masters have seen great blasts of air bursting forth from her (on the way back from other dives I might add) which indicate large sections giving way. Approximately two thirds of the hanger deck has pan-caked down at this time. Weather and time will only work against her until she is just a rubble pile on the sea floor.

Excellent dive skills are a must! The Bikini Dive Masters must cater to the skills of the lowest common denominator diver. The wrecks of Bikini Atoll are not for the new diver. Decompression diving (hanging for 45mins +), buoyancy skills must be mastered. Fin techniques must be mastered!
You will need full understanding of the remoteness of this island and the DCI risks. Evacuation is not always possible. There is no in water decompression here.
Twin steel tank configuration is normal. You must be comfortable with the requirements asked of you.
Other than that, make this destination a reality and go.

Yours truly,
Glen Scott