15:32.228S 167:10.741E 

Sunday 8 th August

We left Lamen Bay on Friday just as the sun was setting for an overnight passage to Espiritu Santo. We passed the island of Ambryn with its volcano glowing in the night sky.

We arrived early morning at Aore Resort in the Segond Channel that is opposite Luganville, Espiritu Santo. There were no free mooring buoys when we arrived. Miss Tippy were on a buoy and were leaving later that afternoon, so we rafted alongside them and picked up their buoy when they left.

We were able to use the resort water taxi to take us over to the main town; our dinghy would never have made it.

Some of the other rally boats were anchored in the bay opposite and Hans (Natibou) organized a wreck dive for the following day.

On Sunday six of us dived on the USS President Coolidge a luxury liner turned troop ship, which lies in 21-60 meters off the shore.Friendly mines hit the Coolidge during the war as it entered the Segond channel.The Coolidge is 200 meters long and 25 meters wide and was fully laden with war supplies when it sank.

The dive site was a short drive out of Luganville. We put on our scuba gear and walked off the beach through shallow water and followed a line down, lying on its port side, we saw the bow first and the three-inch turret mounted guns. We swam into cargo holds where trucks were piled on top of each other and onto the promenade deck; the area is littered with gas masks, helmet and rifles, I picked up a gun, heavy with coral.

Our second dive was inside the Coolidge, we went into the chamber that held the medical stores first, then the chamber that held the fuel pods for planes, these looked like huge eggs.

We only scratched the surface of the Coolidge; they recommend 5-10 dives to do it justice. As our first wreck dive it was fantastic.

Photo of the dive are to follow, Paul used Carols camera unfortunately we won’t see Carol and Pete until Cairns or even Darwin.