At 0800, we were picked up by the dive company at Kosmos. Jaime is a dive master, but we still went with the local dive shop because we wanted to be with someone that knows the area. It was just the three of us with the local dive master. The boat ride over to the Coolidge was pretty short. From the surface, it didn’t look like there would be anything of interest. We tied to a mooring and went down the mooring line. The visibility was the worst we have seen yet in the entire South Pacific, but compared to San Diego, it was great. We couldn’t see the bottom from the surface, which made Eric nervous. He was already uncomfortable about going to a wreck dive where it would be easy to get trapped into a small space, and the lack of clarity pushed him over the edge and he decided to sit this one out.

Jaime and Christi descended the line, which was tied to a corner of the bow. The wreck wasn’t clearly visible until we got pretty close to it. From the corner you could swim over the top (which is the side of the boat), or continue descending to the foredeck. We continued descending. There were lots of fish around there were a couple of enormous angel fish, a big school of fusilier fish which are dark blue fish with bright yellow split tails, a few silver (trevallys) jacks, a tuna, a few parrotfish, and long nosed butterfly fish, to name a few of the species.

As they descended, the whole front of the ship came into clear view. The ship is absolutely massive. Christi felt like a small speck next to it. Christi and Jaime followed the local dive master as he swam over the foredeck, which still has equipment laying around ready for use. There is an anti-aircraft gun with a pile of large shells still stacked up ready for firing, gas masks and rifles lying about.

They swam up to the promenade deck, which was a large companionway with an overhang that is now on its side. This area could be a little intimidating for some, since you are closed in on three sides and the escape route is down, not up. They passed a school of batfish, which look kind of like angel fish when they are full grown, but when they are young they have big droopy fins that they seem to grow into.

From the promenade deck they were able to enter some of the cargo holds below the promenade deck. The cargo area was fully enclosed and relatively dark, with little natural light filtering through. The local dive master was holding a flashlight and shining it around so they could see the treasures below. The cargo holds had been full of stores for the war, and they saw trucks and ammunition down there. Getting in and out of the holds was a bit tricky. They were actually swimming through the support beams of what used to be walls, and the space to get through are not much bigger than a person.

Jaime was aghast that the dive master would lead Christi, a relatively inexperienced diver, into such small, dark spaces. Jaime was surprised that Christi was totally confident about being able to maneuver in these spaces and happy to go into them. We went down to 120 feet, Christi’s deepest dive yet.

We exited the wreck through some more of these tight squeezes and made a slow ascent to the safety stop. The safety stop is a at a flat, sandy area with a little coral and a few sea anemones. There were tons of small fish flittering about that got incredibly close to the people.

Fortunately, there was a rail there held down by cement blocks. Once again, Christi did not have enough weight on and she was floating away, which is quite dangerous after being in such deep water. She held onto that bar for dear life until the dive master added another six pounds of weight to her.

After the dive, we headed in to Luganville to look around and deliver the envelope to customs. The dock we pulled up to is in serious disrepair. There is rusted out mechanical parts all long the shore near the dock, along with a pile of hardened bags of cement. On sore near the dock are several rusted out half dome metal buildings. San Diego is a military town, with six military bases around the area. These same metal buildings are on the bases at home, so we figured they were built during the war and left behind.

We were eagerly greeted by a couple of locals having lunch on the shore. They welcomed us and chatted with us, telling us some of the fun things to do in the area. They were really nice.

We walked over to the road. The road is wide. Two lanes wide on each side with room to park on the side of the road. Jaime noticed the oddity of this right away, but it took Eric and Christi a few minutes to register it since it since wide roads are something familiar to us. This was by far the widest road we have ever seen in the south pacific. It is also made of asphalt, which is rarely seen in the south pacific. Concrete tends to hold up better in the heat. Clearly the military had built American style roads through here.

The downtown area is very small. There is a nice park in the center of it and a produce market at the south end. Most of the buildings look like they are leftover military buildings from the war. There were a few more metal domes, and several low, blocky buildings just like the ones that adorn the military bases in San Diego. The tallest building is a bizarre four story structure. The bottom story is a petrol (gas) station. The story above it looks like office space. The third and fourth stories look like two story, narrow apartments. We’ve never seen apartments above a petrol station before.

To be continued”¦”¦