December 2006

In the 90s the U.S. has committed almost $100 million for the removal of radioactivity, and today Bikini is known as a post-nuclear tropical paradise for divers. Short-term stay on the Bikini Island and its waters are safe. And it is worth going there, because of the regenerated coral reef and most of all because it is the world's most interesting place for wreck diving.
The Bikini Atoll is still a little visited and little known place in the Pacific Ocean. While in 1998 a diving base was opened there, only 12 divers could be there at a time, which significantly reduces the number of people who can explore the area. It’s also not easy to reach. Only two airplanes are flying to Bikini with Air Marshall, both very old and in fairly poor condition. They are so bad, that usually when one is in the air, the second is in repair. And then you land on a strip that has not seen any repairs in 40 years, and time has not been kind.
Only a few people live there permanently – the diving base support and the scientists studying the degree and effects of radiation. According to them, it is still a return to pre-nuclear tests conditions is still a long way away. 42 species of animals that lived at Bikini prior to testing are still missing. To this day, absolute prohibition applies to picking and eating any plant, fish, and drinking the local water. All food is imported to the island from safe areas.

The Bikini Atoll on the Marshall Islands was an American nuclear testing ground in the years 1946-1958. The (in)famous operation Crossroads was carried out there, consisting of a series of nuclear weapons' tests, in 1946. Then the testing continued. On the 1^st of March 1954 the U.S. detonated the most powerful bomb of that period - a 15 megaton Castle Bravo. The power of the explosion was 1,000 times greater than that of the bomb dropped on Hiroshima. The underwater crater, formed after the explosion, is two kilometres long and 73 meters deep. The explosion was so great that the residents of Rongelap located about 200 km from the Bikini Island saw a "second sun", six-foot waves and then “white petals” started to fall from the sky. People (in part displaced from Bikinii, removed from the island by the military before the testing begun) caught it in their hands, thinking it was snow, never before seen on these tropical islands. Several hours later, the petals turned into goo, impossible to remove from the skin. It proved to be radioactive dust. Soon, people began to feel itchy, sick, their eyes filled with tears, skin started flaking, they suffocated. The radiation dose received was two thousand over the annual allowable standard. A few months after the incident, half of 63 residents of Rongelap died in suffering. Bikini was in the news again on 27^th of May 1956, when the world first three-stage bomb was detonated there.

At the turn of the 60's and 70's former residents returned to Bikini, but in 1978 they were again ordered to leave the island, because the radioactivity exceeded the norm again. Cesium-137 was still present in the coastal waters of Bikini Atoll. Strontium-90 was found in plants and Plutonium-239 and 240 in humans. Crabs were also radioactive. Today, after the 40 cm thick layer of irradiated ground has been peeled off the island and stored in a crater on the Runit Island, short-term exposure during a trip to the Bikini is safe. It is also attractive to divers. Primarily, due to the wrecks of sunken ships with all the equipment intact – the influence of the bomb was tested on all parts of the ship, so they were sunken complete. During the 12 years of nuclear tests at the Bikini Atoll a total of 242 ships and 156 aircraft were used. Many of them are accessible to divers and are very interesting objects to explore. Also interesting is the coral reef, which in the half of a century since the explosions has had time to recover and, due to the limited activity of visitors for so many years, has even had the conditions to flourish.

During our first trip, one of the ships that we had the opportunity to explore closer was the Japanese battleship Nagato. At the outbreak of World War II, Nagato was the flagship of the Japanese fleet and Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto place of command (she lost that role after the entry of battleship Yamato into service). The order to attack Pearl Harbor was sent from the deck of this ship. In June 1942 she was also part of the Main Body in the Battle of Midway, but she took no direct part in hostilities. She also participated in the Battle of Leyte, where, together with other units, she sank the aircraft carrier Gambier Bay and three destroyers. In 1945 she was the last Japanese battleship to survive the war. Seized by Americans, she has been used as target boat during atomic test explosions in the Bikini Atoll. She survived the first explosion conducted on the 1^st of July 1946, but sank as a result of the second, underwater atomic bomb explosion on 25^th of July 1946.