Vanuatu: Diving to "The Lady"

Today I was diving at the famous wreck "SS President Coolidge". It was a luxury passenger boat which was converted to a troop transport ship for more than 5000 soldiers. In 1942, it touched some mines and sunk. The wreck is now lying between 20 and 70 meteres under the water and it needs a minimum of 10 dives to see the whole wreck.

With my two dives i did there, i probably only saw a fraction, compared to the 28'000 dives the owner of the dive shop did there in the wreck. Well, 28'000 - I think he probably did little bit too much :D!

The dive was a one of the most impressive Ive ever did. Cause all the aisles through the wreck are very intact and the big and small stuff from the boat, crew and passengers are still there as they left it behind in 1942. Missiles, helmets, guns and rifles, furniture, personal supplies. And the most famous object is in the first class smoking room of the wreck. A porcelain statue, called "The Lady". It is on 40 meters below surface and therefore the time to observe it, is just about 1-2 minutes.

In the afternoon the dive shop organized a second dive at the “million dollar point"! From above it looks like a normal shore and swimming beach! But it is a dumpsite, where at the end of WW2 the americans throw ALL their "things" into the water. Probably they were too lazy to take it home :)! As of today many things have been removed or stolen. But spreaded over several dozen square meters, there are still cars, trucks, boats, canons and many more unidentified metal parts vegetating on the ground.