Bikini Atoll - post-nuclear diving site

Bikini Atoll, is also known as Pikinni. It is made up of 36 mini islets, with a total area of about 6km², surrounding a lagoon stretching over 594km². The whole is part of the Marshall Islands archipelago.

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It was discovered by the Russian sailor and traveller Otto Kotzeube at the beginning of the 19th century. He named it Eschscholtz Atoll in honour of another naturalist and his friend.

Shortly after the Second World War, the US Army displaced the natives and turned the site into its own private nuclear testing ground. The targets were ships no longer of use to the US Navy, including the aircraft carrier USS Saratoga, but also the only ship seized from the Japanese Imperial Navy – and Japanese transport vessels. Battleship HIJMS Nagato and Japanese transport vessels. In total, as part of Operation Crossroads, 23 nuclear charges were detonated here, including the largest ever used by the Americans – Castle Bravo.

Film from the expedition of Krzysztof Starnawski and Leszek Czarnecki in 2007.

In 1998, a diving base was opened on the atoll’s largest island, Bikini. It is able to receive diving groups of up to 12 divers. The income generated by the dive centre is paid into the coffers of the island government of Bikini, whose headquarters are in Kili.

Underwater, such vessels as the aircraft carrier Saratoga, the battleship Nagato, the destroyers Anderson and Lamson, the cruiser Sakawa, the transport ships Carlisle and Gilliam, the submarines Pilotfish and Apogon and the ship Arkansas await diving enthusiasts.

Since 2010. Bikini Atoll has been on the UNESCO World Heritage List since 2010.

Source: wikipedia.org, bikiniatoll.com