TThe S.M.S. Cormoran and the Tokai Maru...

Take a captured Russian mail ship, convert her by adding armour and guns in the Chinese dockyard of Tsingtao, and you have the Cormoran; or more correctly the Cormoran II. Effectively impounded in the main harbour on Guam she was eventually scuttled in 1917 by her own crew in order to avoid capture by the Americans.

She sits now within the confines of the harbour and is an easy dive by boat, taking less than 20 minutes from the dock to anchoring up over the wreck.

Less than thirty years later in World War II the Japanese freighter Tokai Maru was sunk by a US Navy submarine attack and she lies so close to the Cormoran now that it is possible to put your hands on one wreck and your feet on the other! There can't be all that many opportunities to do this anywhere else in the world!

Sadly the visibility within the harbour confines is none too good and getting decent photographs is difficult, however we managed to take a few, especially within the Cormoran's engine room and bathroom.

As always just click on any photo below which takes your fancy and a bigger version will open for you on a separate page...

The Tokai Maru...