Bikini Atoll On Marshall Islands

Infamous as a nuclear-weapons testing ground in the 1940s and 1950s, this string of three dozen small islands surrounds a lagoon near the intersection

of the equator and the international dateline.

Bikini Atoll is one of the world’s top spots for wreck diving. Now that radiation levels have fallen to safe levels, deep-water divers can descend some 100 feet into the lagoon—now a ship graveyard—and swim among dozens of sunken vessels, including wrecked World War II naval ships. Many still have preserved guns and other ordnance that are easily visible in the clear water. Steve Mortell, a training supervisor with the Professional Association of Diving Instructors, said that at the Bikini Atoll dive center, "you can watch actual WWII films of the wrecks you are going to dive on the next day."

Your Dive Center.org Team