Bikini Atoll is arguably one of the most remote and adventurous dive locations left on Earth. It is literally in the middle of the Pacific Ocean; depths here allow only trained technical divers to reach the wrecks and the atoll feels (and has been) abandoned and deserted in every way. But Master Liveaboards has returned to the location, post-Covid, to bring divers to the wrecks in luxury and comfort—even with internet connection to the outside world via Starlink. I cannot think of a better way to dive this bucket-list location.

This was my third trip to Bikini but this didn’t lessen my enthusiasm to getting back there. Traveling to this Atoll, deep within the Marshal Island group, takes some doing. Getting there from Auckland, New Zealand, I flew to Cairns, then Guam, then onto Kwajalein via an island hopper, which stopped at four other Micronesian islands. Some 27 hours later, getting into Kwajalein meant that we were only half way there.

The Marshall Islands consist of 29 atolls with a total land mass around 180 square kilometers (70 sq. miles), (about the size of Seattle), but the atolls cover over 750,000 square miles of ocean (think the size of Mexico.) Anyone looking at this region of the Pacific would guess the diving would be pretty amazing and it doesn’t disappoint. Healthy reefs, plenty of fish, and a lagoon filled with WWII shipwrecks, airplanes, discarded military supplies, and even a ship that almost survived two nuclear bombs. Welcome to Kwajalein Atoll.

It was January 1943 when the heavy battle of Kwajalein took place during World War II on what was the outer ring of the Japanese force in the South Pacific at that time. The runways on the Atoll have been destroyed within a few days by the US troops and the following air raid sealed the fate of several big Japanese cargo ships which have been bombed to the seabed of the lagoon. Sixteen of these ships can be dived today.

Under Japanese occupation during World War II, Truk served as one of the Japanese Imperial Navy’s main bases in the South Pacific Theater. Some compared it as Japan’s Pearl Harbor. This logistical and operations base for the Japanese Combine Fleet served as the stage for the United States’ attack called Operation Hailstone.

German Captain Adalbert Zuckschwerdt steered his ship, the SMS Cormoran, into Guam’s Apra Harbor on 14 December 1914. With only 50 tons of coal left in the hold and not much food, he hoped the Americans of this U.S. territory would provide them with much needed supplies to continue their voyage. Although still a neutral party of WWI, the Americans refused to give an adequate amount of coal to continue their voyage, in part because of their own short supply, thus preventing the vessel from leaving Guam.

With so many interesting wrecks, it can be hard to choose a favorite. But ask any wreck diver who has been to Chuuk and most likely they will tell you their favorite is the San Francisco Maru. The ship is popularly referred to as the “Million Dollar Wreck” because it was (and still is) chock-full of expensive cargo including tanks, trucks, mines, ammunition, aircraft bombs, torpedoes and depth charges.

I discovered some truth in that as soon as I arrived. It’s not often you show up at a dive resort and find you are the only person there. My flight had arrived from Guam in the middle of the night and I had only diving on my mind, with the intent of a few hours of sleep and then get up for diving. But immediately, I was introduced to Yap’s own prescription of island time. “Sleep in,” they told me. “We’ll go diving whenever you wake up.”

I found out pretty quickly that it was quite nice to have one’s own resort.