ANTHEIS FISH DANCE AMONG THE SOFT CORAL ON THE DECK OF THE SHINKOKO MARU A WRECK IN TRUK LAGOON - MICRONESIA DANCING GOLD No pirates booty or chests of gold will you find here in this realm. Only dancing Antheis like coins of gold flickering by in the sunlight. The treasure found here is natures bounty of life in a rainbow of colors and hues. A ships graveyard at the bottom of Truk Lagoon, these massive hulking ships now monuments to mankinds folly and his taste for war. In the fifty years since these ships were sunk nature has gradually transformed them into lush gardens of coral and reef life. Many of these massive ships are no longer recognizable as something forged by the mind of man with a passion for death. Now only silent sentinels of another time that breath a new life in a Garden of Eden. This image was taken on the deck of the Shinkoko Maru a Japanese cargo and troop transport ship lying in 60 feet of water. Never having been much of a wreak diver up till this time, I preferred to explore the exteriors where life thrives. Diving the shipwrecks of Truk Lagoon was a new experience for me. It was like diving through history and time. One could feel the spirits of so many lives lost in pursuit of conquest and war. In my mind as I moved among the debris of war I could hear the explosions and the cries of the dying. Moving among broken dishes and Saki bottles, the occasional human bone or skull gave one an uneasy feeling of invading a sacred gravesite. Staring into the hollow eye sockets of a human skull that once belonged to some lost soul only amplified those feelings. As I moved down dark corridors within the bowels of the ship one could feel the spirits rushing by in panic on their way to the river Styx to make that final crossing. These wrecks are still covered with live munitions, machine gun turrets with belts of bullets, large canon shells and depth charges, many still potentially lethal as they gradually disintegrate in the sea. Drums of oil, gas and other toxins still leak from their holds and dissipate in the ocean. Yet like giant tea cups settled to the ocean floor they form a thing of beauty with anchors resting forever on the bottom. No longer machines of death and destruction, they have become havens for life festooned with color like floats in a parade. geoff