Kinugawa Maru (Bonegi II)

The Kinugawa Maru — 'Bonegi 2' — is a 135 m Japanese armed transport run aground and shelled to a wreck on 15 November 1942 during the Guadalcanal campaign, now resting just off Bonegi Beach west of Honiara. A shore entry dive, the hull runs from a coral crusted bow around 7 m down to the sternpost and rudder near 23 m and is easily circled in one dive. Hard and soft corals, gorgonians and balloon corallimorphs sheathe the steel and a heavily encrusted deck gun; spinecheek and Clark's anemonefish work the anemones, while round and longfin batfish and lionfish hang over the wreckage. Visibility is clearest in the dry season, when runoff from neighbouring Bonegi Creek eases.