Santo, Vanuatu - the SS President Coolidge

Finally! The main event. This was what I had come to Vanuatu for. However, my first day was a settling in day rather than a diving day. I decided to do a half day tour with a few people from the hotel I was staying at. I had read that the Matevulu Blue Hole was not to be missed so figured I'd check it out. They had some other things planned but I jumped on the tour very last minute (5 minutes to get dressed, pack my bag and go) so wasn't sure of the details. It turns out our first stop was a custom village. This was a very different custom village compared to the one I went to on Tanna. For starters, these people weren't even originally from the island of Espiritu Santo! The whole thing was quite a staged production for tourists rather than the authentic experience I had on Tanna. Nonetheless it was amusing to watch 5 year old boys brandish spears and pretend to be scary cannibals. They did do some traditional dancing which was entertaining and fed us some taro (YUM!) and even a sample of kava. After the village we headed out to the Blue Hole which is a gorgeous little swim spot in the middle of nowhere. I could have happily played in the water all day (even in the rain), but I think the rest of the group almost decided to send out a search party to look for me when I was snorkeling at the far end. After the swim it was off to check out some WWII war wreckage in the jungle. During the war there were over 100,000 American troops stationed on Santo and there is evidence everywhere, including a famous dive site called Million Dollar Point (more on that later). After the tour was done I stopped into the dive shop to get my gear sorted for the following day.

Day two and the long anticipated Coolidge beckoned. Hailed as the world's largest easily accessible shipwreck, I was looking forward to 6 days of exploration. The Coolidge is a 200 meter luxury liner built in 1931. It featured many comforts such as two swimming pools, a gymnasium, a beauty salon, a soda fountain, and even a stock exchange. One of the finer rooms, the first class smoking lounge contained an antique marble fireplace with a large decorative panel of a lady and unicorn on the mantle. In 1941 the Americans converted the Coolidge into a troop ship, but many of her fixtures remained. Unfortunately the Coolidge met her demise in 1942 when she hit a friendly mine and the captain attempted to beach her. Nearly all of the 5000 troops aboard were saved (2 perished). The Coolidge now lies in 20-70 metres of water offering divers the chance to explore this fascinating wreck and its many artifacts.

In preparation for this trip I started a technical diving course as I had talked to people who had dived the Coolidge previously and thought if I wanted to get the most out of the trip, as well as being as safe as possible, it made sense to learn about decompression diving (since all except the first dive are deco dives) as well as how to dive with twin tanks since going to these depths was going to require a lot of gas! I didn't end up finishing the course before I went, but felt that I had learned the basics and I would play it by ear. I would dive within my comfort zone. I had yet to determine what that was. During the course, although practicing all the skills for dives up to 45 metres, we actually never went beyond 35 metres. I had previously dived to 40 metres a few times, but that was it. The shallowest dives on the Coolidge are 35-40 metres. Nearly all of the diving is in the 40-60 metre range. Oh, and you are also inside a wreck!

It's almost unimaginable that you can walk in off the beach and be diving a 200 metre long wreck in 70 metres of water within minutes, but it's the case with the Coolidge. This, and the lovely little coral garden area that Allan Power Dive Tours have created for doing decompression stops make this an easy place to dive. The first dive started off with minimal penetration but once my guide, Garry, saw that I was a decent diver we went for full penetration on dive 2. Garry estimates that he has done over 10,000 dives on the Coolidge. For me, having never been inside the wreck before, I was so busy trying to take it all in that I actually lost Garry for a few seconds a couple times. Once he slipped to another deck and I could no longer see his light I wasn't sure where he was. So I had to start poking my head in various directions until I saw his light. Along the way we saw rifles, helmets, gas masks, tanks, GMC trucks, Jeeps, and airplane fuel containers. I was hooked. The next morning was the famous dive called "The Lady" which takes you to the lady and unicorn piece that was once on the fireplace mantle. Men are supposed to kiss the Lady and women the unicorn's ass, but I resisted the urge. This was the start of the deco diving and also where things started to get really interesting. Imagine medicine tablets still in bottles, insulin kits, morphine ampoules, a workshop complete with tools and a massive vise. Rows of toilets, elaborate chandeliers, typewriters, boots, a barber chair, china and crystal, a huge dough mixing machine, piles of shovels and rope, shoes, belts, sinks, urinals and soapdishes. Not to mention a mosaic tile swimming tool made with 7 different colours of tiles. Each day got a bit deeper as my confidence level grew. Finally, on my final day, I opted for the big dive. The stern dive requires swimming the entire length of the ship twice. First you work your way down to what was 62.4 metres for me and sent one of my computers beeping like mad. This allows you to swim past the propeller shafts and the massive rudders and see the lettering of the Coolidge. Before I started diving the Coolidge I didn't think I would do the stern dive. I thought people just did it so they could say they had done it, they had dived that deep. However, after spending all that time in the wreck and feeling like I had gotten to know her pretty well, I really did want to see the ship's name. Interestingly, my only thought when I saw the name was "Damn, that's tiny!" I may have been narced (it did take me two attempts to determine how many different coloured tiles there were in the pool at 55 metres). However, I think the reason the name seems so small is that the stern dive allows you to see how big the ship really is. In total I did 11 dives on the Coolidge and I definitely did not see it all. One of these dives was a night dive which allows you to experience the wonder of flashlight fish. They have a gland under each eye which is full of bacteria and when they lift a little flap it sends out a fluorescent light. Very cool experience! Besides the wreck, I did one dive at a site called Million Dollar Point. At the end of WWII the Americans did not have enough room on their ships to send all their equipment and supplies back to the USA. They offered to sell it to the locals at a low price. The locals said no because they knew of the dilemma the Americans faced and figured they would just leave the stuff behind. The Americans decided instead to bulldoze everything into the ocean. There is a massive amount of stuff there! There is everything from bulldozers to trucks and Jeeps, tracked excavators, graders, forklifts, tractors, steam-rollers and semi-trailers. If you're lucky you may even find cases of Coke bottles (I wasn't so lucky).

Once the diving was done it was time for another Santo must-do, the Millenium Cave tour. This is a full day adventure described as not for the faint-hearted. I knew it would be perfect for me. It starts with a trek of about 1 1/2 hours on a very slippery muddy trail in the jungle. I was constantly having to hold onto trees or posts which the guide, David, had put in various places where there were no nearby trees to hang onto. It was very messy and I was glad that I had worn my neoprene dive boots as suggested. Eventually we reached the bat cave. The trip through the cave requires about 30 minutes of walking through water, sometimes chest deep and clambering over rocks along the way. Although it attracted bugs to my face which I kept having to swat away, I was happy I had brought my headlamp as the provided flashlight wasn't particularly useful for lighting your way when you needed two hands for climbing. The owner of the hotel I stayed at had dislocated her shoulder in the cave and it was easy to see how that could happen. Once we reached daylight again on the other side we enjoyed lunch by the river before moving on. I had thought that the cave was supposed to be the highlight of the day but actually for me it just kept getting better. After lunch we did some canyoning downriver which included moves that I never would have thought possible! Seriously, you want me to limbo under that rock?! But we all made it. Then it was time to float/swim downstream on inner tubes through a an absolutely stunning gorge. I was sorry when we had to get off the river and begin the climb back out and the slippery trek back to the start. Yes, it was a not to be missed experience!

My final day in Vanuatu was meant to be a relaxing day. I decided to rent a scooter from the hotel and go check out a nearby beach. Sadly, after all the high risk activities I had done all week it was the scooter ride that did me in. In fact, I never even got out of the parking lot of the hotel! I hit a massive pothole the wrong way and the scooter went over. Hurt my shoulder and scraped myself up a bit. That was the end of the day at the beach. Instead it was a day by the hotel pool. A bad ending to what was a phenomenal trip otherwise!