Bikini Atoll Scuba Diving, which has operated for the past 13 years, has closed its doors due to economic difficulties.
'We've been limping along and bleeding money all over the place,' said manager Jack Niedenthal. 'I just thought it would be better to end the operation now and still have money to meet my payroll for another month or so and be able to return all the money to customers who have paid, rather than risk going in for another three or four months, losing a lot of money and then not being able to keep a payroll or pay people back their money.'
Niedenthal did not, however, rule out the possibility of being able to reopen next year.
Bikini is a unique diving environment, possessing the wrecks of a host of fully armed, operational warships. These were moored as guinea pigs to gauge the effects of several of the American nuclear test explosions carried out at Bikini over 12 years from 1946.
The waves and water columns generated by the explosions were so great that they were able to sink vessels such as the USS Saratoga, the captured German battle-cruiser Prinz Eugen and the captured Japanese battleship (and Admiral Yamamoto's flagship) Nagato.
Diver Magazine's John Bantin, who dived there in 2002, concluded that Bikini Atoll is quite simply 'the world's premier wreck-diving destination'.
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