Some of
This is a small, schooner type Japanese freighter that sank near some small coralheads, 110 ft deep. It's an easy swim from the lagoon-side reef at Shell Island. The ship was much more overgrown than most of the wrecks at Kwajalein, yet it still retained it's basic form. It was small but it was a beautiful shipwreck.
Inside the Shell Island wreck.
The "Moto Maru" is just one of many small, unidentified Japanese boats that were sunk during the attacks on Kwajalein. Other divers have probably had other names for it, but we called it the Moto Maru because two of my friends, Mike Peck (Moe) and Tony Martin (shown here), discovered it during a walk-in dive from Emon Beach.
This strange barge sits upright, 140 ft. deep, near the Tateyama Maru.
This photo shows Tony Martin, posing without his scuba mask, on the pointed bow of the barge.
As the barge sank it pulled down the large mooring buoy to which it had been chained.
This whaler style inter-island freighter was sunk just off the lagoon-side shore of Kwajalein Island, north of the pier.
It's a small, shallow wreck, but it has several cargo holds, a minimal superstructure, and a small engine room to explore.
This F4 fighter is one of several American airplanes that were stripped of engines and other parts and then dumped into the lagoon near Roi-Namur Island.
Text and Photos © 1999 by Bob Hampton All Rights Reserved