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Editor’s note: Dianne Strong is the author of “Witness to War: Truk Lagoon’s Master Diver Kimiuo Aisek.” Strong interviewed Aisek in 2000.

Scuba divers around the world know it as “the world’s greatest wreck dive.”

The sunken wrecks of Truk Lagoon, also known as Chuuk Lagoon, in 45 years have attracted “Titanic” writer and director James Cameron, “Her Deepness” Dr. Sylvia Earle, “Crocodile Hunter” Steve Irwin, John Kennedy Jr., cinematographer Al Giddings, Klaus Lindemann, Miss Universe Shawn Weatherly, Sen. John McCain, and Skin Diver Magazine’s Paul Tsimoulis.

And Kimiuo Aisek, a humble Chuukese from Tonoas Island in the Truk Lagoon, made it all possible when he founded Blue Lagoon Dive Shop on Nov. 13, 1973.

Scuba divers around the world fell in love when on Jan. 11 ABC aired “Lagoon of Last Ships,” an episode in “The Undersea World of Jacques Cousteau” series. For the first time, color film revealed the beauty of the ships sunk by Operation Hailstone in February 1944. Every wreck diver now wanted to dive the Truk Lagoon’s “ship reefs.”

Aisek was a starfish control diver employed by the Chuuk fisheries office during Chuuk’s days as a member of the Trust Territory of the Pacific Islands. He was the first Micronesian trained on scuba, and he was one of the few islanders who knew how to run the air compressor at the fisheries office.

On May 9, 1968, Continental-Air Micronesia Capt. Dave Streit was the first man to land a jet on Chuuk’s mile-long coral airstrip. Now tourists had a way to travel to Chuuk.

But there was no dive shop. In the beginning, divers brought their own air tanks and Aisek would fill them at the fisheries office.

The first ‘fam tour’

The rest became history, thanks to Skin Diver Magazine and a sunken Japanese submarine. In the summer of 1970, AMF/Voit sponsored the Giddings-Tzimoulis expedition along with Continental Air-Micronesia. Work on the first films on diving in Chuuk and Palau was now underway.

Ken Seybold, founder of Bay Travel, led the first “exploratory dive tour” to Chuuk with 11 divers. The tour included photographer Chuck Nicklin from San Diego, Dr. Stan Berman, a certified diving medical examiner and expert in hyperbaric medicine, and of course, Tzimoulis and Giddings.

Marine Resources Director Peter Wilson had done his homework. Having grown up in Hawaii, he knew how to obtain naval documents. He unearthed the U.S. Navy Intelligence report on the bombing of Chuuk. It provided information on Japanese installations on the various islands. But it also reported the sinking in April 1944 of the I-169 Shinohara submarine, and the failed efforts by the Japanese to raise it while the 56-man crew was still alive.

The team succeeded in finding the submarine. When Tzimoulis featured it in February 1972’s “Submarine: Diver’s Discover WWII Japanese I-169 with its Entombed Crew,” divers started to come to Chuuk “like rain,” Aisek liked to say. While waiting for their oxygen tanks to be filled, Giddings and Tzimoulis liked to plead with Aisek to open a dive shop.

Dive shop opening

All of the tour operators were bringing their own tanks to Chuuk for their clients to use, and they started leaving them with Aisek to use for future groups. They gave Aisek permission to rent them out and pocket the income. And on each trip, the tour operators tried to convince Aisek to open a dive shop.

In 1971, Seybold asked Aisek, “Why don’t you quit your job and open a dive shop?”

In response, Aisek asked, “What’s a dive shop? How do we do that?”

What’s a dive shop?

“You get a compressor, tanks, dive equipment, boats, then I bring the people and you take them out,” Seybold explained enthusiastically.

“No, I love my job,” Aisek replied.

Aisek truly did love his job at the fisheries office. He was making $3.50 an hour – good money on the islands in those days. His work was important and people relied on him.

“But Ken kept pushing me. I never wanted to start a dive shop. I saw one in the ’60s when I was a fisherman in Hawaii. All I saw there was scuba tanks,” Aisek said.

“Ken asked me, ‘What are you going to do when they close fisheries down? How are you going to support your families?’”

In a 1999 interview, Aisek would recall that history, and commented, “I’m not that smart. I’m only smart in chasing girls.”

With each dive trip, Giddings and Seybold repeatedly urged Aisek to open a dive shop.

“I only have three years of Japanese schooling. What do I know about business? I’m no businessman!” Aisek replied, incredulous at that thought.

‘People came like rain’

The Truk Continental Hotel opened in 1970. The tour companies and the former Air Micronesia were bringing in tourists. “The people came like rain. They came from California, Kwajalein, Guam. They came like crazy,” Aisek recalled. So did the money – big money, much more than the $3.50 per hour Aisek was making in the fisheries business.

With each tour group that came, money changed hands as divers paid Aisek for pumping their tanks. Seybold and Giddings urged Aisek to use this money to buy the tanks from the divers. Little by little, Aisek accumulated equipment.

“In the middle of ’72, Kenny wanted me to buy all his tanks at half price. He said, ‘You’ll be rich!’ I bought all 60 tanks.

“They paid me $5 an hour to run the compressor,” Aisek recalled. “I was the only one who knew how to run it. And they tipped me very much money. I was making $500 to $600 a week, and $400 a week from my fisheries job. That part I gave to my wife. I was very happy.”

One night, after pumping 20 tanks, Aisek paused to let the fisheries compressor cool down. During this break, Seybold brought up the usual topic.

“Are you making money?” Seybold asked Aisek.

“Yes, plenty!” Aisek replied. Seybold then asked him if he wanted to make more money.

“Tell your boys —” Seybold was saying when he was interrupted.

“What boys?” Aisek said.

“The boys you’re gonna hire to drive your boats to take out your divers,” Seybold answered.

“He really wanted me to open the dive shop,” Aisek recalled.

But lurking always in the back of Aisek’s mind were his memories of his failed education under the Japanese administration. With the Peace Corps volunteers teaching English, business and economic development, he still doubted his own abilities. He knew he loved diving. He loved finding the wrecks. But running a business? That was something else.

Finally, after multiple visits by Giddings, Aisek agreed to open Micronesia’s first dive shop. The Peace Corps found him a typhoon plywood shelter, and the Trust Territory loaned him $7,000. At 45 years old, the former island boy with three years of Japanese schooling had become an entrepreneur.

Amazed that he had succeeded, when so many doubted him, Aisek decided to celebrate the opening in grand style. “I pumped all the tanks, bought a six-pack of beer and invited Barry Connell – the Truk High School principal – to come over to the shop. I told him to invite all the American teachers to come out to dive the next day. No charge! That was Nov. 13, 1973!”

Forty-five years later, Kimiuo Aisek’s grandson, Tryvin Aisek, is a Professional Association of Diving Instructors (PADI)-certified dive instructor and runs Blue Lagoon Dive Shop. The shop owns 10 dive boats, four compressors and numerous oxygen tanks, and can service divers using rebreathers. In 1998, the dive shop bought the 54-room former Continental Hotel, managed by grandson Iadvin. The Aisek family also offers rustic accommodations on Fonomu and Jeep Islands.

And this was all made possible by the patriarch, Kimiuo Aisek, who died in 2001 at the age of 74.

In 2009, Kimiuo Aisek was the first diver to be posthumously inducted into the International Scuba Diving Hall of Fame in Grand Cayman Island.

The Kimiuo Aisek Memorial Museum was dedicated on Sept. 13, 2014. It is located next to the Blue Lagoon Dive Shop and Truk Blue Lagoon Resort in Neauo village, Weno, Chuuk. The first museum in the state of Chuuk, this is the finest collection of Pacific War nautical artifacts and history in Micronesia.

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