PARADISE

TRAVELLER
Where ships lie
OUR REGION
Legends of the lagoon
for two months and logged nearly
500 dives.
While most of the human remains
have been repatriated, some still
remain as a poignant reminder of
this tragedy. Today all the wrecks
are protected as historic sites
and no items may be removed or
disturbed.
Underwater photographer
Andrew Marriott has produced
the newest book to feature the
wrecks of Truk Lagoon. Created
in conjunction with the Kimiuo
Aisek Memorial Museum,
‘Legends Beneath The Waves,
Truk Lagoon’, features the life
of these vessels before and
after their destruction in 1944’s
Operation Hailstone.
“This book tells these amazing
stories in a way that captures
a sense of the drama and
action these ships and crews
experienced,” says Marriott,
who spent almost an entire
week underwater with his
camera.
“We complement these
stories with an incredible
array of images including
historic pictures of the ships,
exclusive images of artefacts
in the Kimiuo Aisek Memorial
Museum and amazing images of
the wrecks today.”
“I will have probably shot
12,000 pictures for this book
and you’re seeing only the very
best on the pages.”
The idea for the book came to
him in an unusual way. On one of
his dives, he recieved a message
from a thousand souls.
“I had one dive early on in the
project where I was deep inside
one of the wrecks and suddenly
found myself surrounded by lots
of human bones. I don’t want to
get too spooky, but I could feel a
certain something down there.
It wasn’t scary or threatening,
instead a kind of plea. These
men had died in such traumatic
circumstances, it was as if I
could sense they wanted their
story told. It was a request I
could not refuse.”
You can find Marriott on
Facebook at ‘Fata Morgana
by Andrew Marriott’ and at
the fata-morgana.net.
March – April 2017 47