Wednesday, July 1, 2009

Vanuatu Diving, the SS President Coolidge

By Terry Fisher

Santo dives include two of the world's most accessible shipwrecks, the USS President Coolidge and the USS Tucker. Plus, on the reefs and in the submarine caves you can see hundreds of colourful and interesting fish.

Great reef dives can be found along most of the Santo coast. Dive operators tend to stick to the south-east coast, the location of the wrecks of the SS President Coolidge and the USS Tucker and an area known as 'Million Dollar Point'. Wreck and reef diving is suitable for divers of any ability who have completed basic training.

These two quality wreck dives are just meters from the Vanuatu coastline, both highly accessible to those diving on the island of Santo.

The SS President Coolidge is a American luxury liner converted to a US troop ship during the second world war. It sank just meters from the shore and is generally considered the largest accessible wreck dive in the world, and the best dive in Santo. Novices can dive the main bulk of the ship, whereas more experienced divers can go deeper into the wreck to look at life on the inside.

The second wreck is the SS Tucker, an American destroyer that was stationed in Vanuatu during the second world war. Unfortunately it was accidently sunk by one of the USA's own mines, and now it too sits just offshore, close enough to be accessible to those diving in Santo.

When diving the relatively shallow Million Dollar Point, divers can see large areas of military war surplus that was simply dumped into the ocean when the Americans left Vanuatu at the end of the war. This Santo dive includes military vehicles and even the odd bulldozer - making it one the most popular Santo diving sites.

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