As mentioned in the last post, the SS President Coolidge hit a couple of “friendly” mines as it came into port here on Santo, and the captain then ran it up onto the reef along the beach. When it sank, it slid backwards on the steep slope, settling with the bow around 60′ deep and the stern around 200′. This has to be one of, if not the most easily accessible big wreck dives anywhere in the world.

We walked out into the shallow water about fifty yards, slipped on our flippers, and followed our divemaster just another fifty meters or so before we were staring at this massive ship.

After looking at some guns on the outside we quickly made our way inside. The ship is huge, and many of the cargo holds are wide open and easy to enter.

We made our way down to 90′ on this dive, weaving in and out through different areas and seeing a lot of easily identifiable jeeps and trucks. This ship had 5,340 troops onboard and tons of supplies, all of which went down almost immediately. Nothing was saved, as they were all pretty sure when they ran the ship aground, that it would sit there and they’d have all the time in the world to clear it off. Instead, it stayed up for about an hour before slipping into the deep. Interestingly, the ship held 591 pounds of quinine (malaria treatment), which was apparently the entire US stock of the drug at the time. Have to wonder how many troops died of malaria because of this.

Gearing up for dive two.

This dive was similar to the first, taking us down to 100′ and winding through different passageway and storage areas.

Awesome dives that we’d place right up at the top of our all-time list. If we had been staying longer I’d have considered doing a deep water course, and maybe some night dives here. There are dozens upon dozens of different dives to be made. We hardly even scratched the surface.