DIVE LOG AUSTRALASIA FEB 2026

Niall shows us the ship’s Galley on the Nippo. He gave us a pre dive brief explaining the artefacts such as the boiler, the huge stoves and ovens. Note that he has perfect buoyancy and has not created any silt at all. This photo shows challenges in confined space.

sacred site to many people. It sank in 1890 and about 134 * lives were lost either in the sinking or in subsequent accidents such as drownings at sea over the next day or so whilst more people were being rescued. There were 101 paying passengers, 121 crew and 92 Indians and 70 Indonesians from Java. There was at least one ? stowaway.* (Who knows?) Once again, for me, the attraction is the marine life. There are resident schools of Diagonal, Spotted Sweetlip as well as Estuarine Cod, Epinephilus malabarensis . Better still, there are huge schools of Dusky Sweetlip in the holds. Quite often, a few hundred will create formations of military precision within the safety of the holds. I did photograph one which had survived a violent attack showing some huge, deep gashes across its side. That is why they were hiding inside the wreck! This wreck makes for outstanding

photographic opportunities. The challenge here is to get a good shot of three hundred big Duskies tightly packed into the hold in four metres viz. Going natural light is a good option here. If you are a flashaholic like me, turn the strobes down and have them pointing outwards to minimize backscatter. As usual, the best way to minimize backscatter is to get closer to your quarry. Look at the dark photo above. The diver is Niall inside the galley of the Nippo Maru in Chuuk Lagoon. It has seventy years of sediment. Niall has not raised on single speck of dust when swimming inside this extremely tight space. He has sublime skills and had created zero sediment because he controls his buoyancy perfectly. That is the minimum standard for wreck penetration. Buoyancy control as close to perfection as you can manage or the photo shoot is destroyed.

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Dive Log Australasia #416 February ’26

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