Pic of the Day: April 12

Happy Zombie Jesus Day. One thing I'm looking forward to when this is all over is traveling again. I reckon that'll be a bit different post 'Ronageddon though. On today's journey through the photo archives, we're going back to Truk Lagoon.

Ghosts of the Pacific

I think Truk Lagoon is probably the coolest place I've ever been. Truk served as the forward operations base for the Japanese Navy in WWII. It's remoteness and natural defenses made it virtually impenetrable to any invading forces. That was until Operation Hailstone sank virtually the entire Japanese Merchant Naval fleet over two days in February 1944.

Today the lagoon is the shipwreck diving capitol of the world. There's something both eerie and powerful about diving here. These ships became the final resting place for many Japanese sailors.

Pictured above are the twin masts of the Fujikawa Maru. Shooting underwater presents its own set of challenges. On top of getting your exposure settings where you want them., you also add constantly checking your depth, air, no decompression limits, fine tuning your buoyancy, etc... I think the level of difficulty is way higher than shooting on land. I have nothing but the upmost respect for the photographers that shoot underwater professionally. Especially in a place like Truk, where most of the dives are deep and technical.