The East Tangat Gunboat


 

 

Many of the world's navies including the Japanese built a series of small, fast, lightly armoured gunboats which came under the collective heading of "submarine chasers". Their soul purpose was to defend harbours, docks and river estuaries etc. from attack by submarine and they were well armed with depth charges and smaller calibre guns. Both this wreck and the Lusong Gunboat close by are of this type and you can see a photograph of a construction kit model of a very similar American vessel to the right.

This is the deeper wreck of the two and she lies close to the shore behind Tangat Island almost out of the water on the beach at her bows. It is perfectly possible to snorkel the wreck and indeed we spent a good half hour in the water with the camera after our dive on her dropping food leftovers to attract the fish. Although her bow is very shallow she is at such a steep angle in the water that her stern is much deeper at around 15 metres. She is ideal as a shallow second dive or for late on in a diving trip when a flight the following day precludes much on-gassing.

There is a lot of life on the wreck including some enormous anemones with attendant anemone fish, and a common site are batfish at the cleaning stations patiently waiting for their turn. Due to the shallow depths on this wreck it presents awesome possibilities for photography, especially where the sunlight is at it's most intense and the colours of the subjects really do stand out.

Whilst undoubtedly a great dive the East Tangat Gunboat is not our personal favourite but still well worth a visit.

 

 

 

                                 

Don't forget that if you wish to see a larger version of any of the images below all you have to do is click the relevant thumbnail and it will open a new window displaying a much bigger version of the photograph. Don't



Our January 2007 visit...


 


Divers outside the wreck of the gunboat at Tangat Island...

Anemone fish sit guard over their rapidly closing anemone...

Inside the wreck...

Two Butterflyfish swim under the hull of the gunboat...

We really have no idea what this pretty fish is called so answers on a postcard please!

A large anemone on the hull...

Our guide Tantan contemplates the way out...

Metal! No fish to get in the way of this prime piece of wreck!!!

Fish swimming within the wreck...

The remains of a porthole in the hull...

A large and very friendly Batfish...

Tantan...

A Batfish being cleaned by a Cleaner Wrasse...

A small guard for such a large anemone!

Here he is again in close up...

Tracy looks in to the wreck...

Mike Holroyd...

Two Clownfish on yet another anemone...


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