Trip Report : Vanuatu / SS President Coolidge (Jun 2026)

Background

After years of taking three to four big international dive trips per year, I hit a wall. The Malin Head trip in July 2025 was a great experience and the dives were amazing. However, it was a rough travel experience — somewhere between the logistics, the jet lag, and the cumulative grind of constant international travel, I just ran out of steam for big trips. Add to that the fact that I am working on a book — which has been demanding more and more of my time — and the decision to take a break was an easy one. I ended up taking almost exactly a year off from international dive trips.

When I finally decided to get back in the saddle, I didn’t pick an easy destination. The SS President Coolidge had been on my list for close to ten years, but I had always put it off — knowing that getting to Espiritu Santo, Vanuatu from the United States is not a trivial undertaking. The Coolidge is consistently listed among the top ten wreck dives in the world, and having now dived it, I can confirm that reputation is well deserved. It’s a remarkable wreck, and one I’ll cover in detail in its own dedicated post.

The trip started with a midnight flight on June 24 and wrapped up on July 6 (originally planned for July 5 — but we’ll get to that). Stripping out travel and off-gassing days, it resulted in six dive days that included not just the Coolidge, but also a Corsair aircraft wreck off Dany Island and a dive at the legendary Million Dollar Point — both of which will get their own dedicated posts. As for the travel itself, the universe apparently has a sense of humor about returning travelers. Fiji Air made sure my comeback trip was anything but smooth, and that story is detailed in the Travel & Logistics section below. 😄

As with previous trip reports, this post covers the trip in general — travel, accommodation, food, dive operations, and overall impressions. Individual wreck posts will go deeper on the history and specific dives.

Below are links to each section of the report. As usual, this report is very detailed (especially the travel & logistics given the complexity of this specific location). Feel free to skip sections that aren’t of interest.

• Travel Logistics
• Accommodation
• Food & Dining
• Dive Center & Dive Operations
• Wrecks
• Additional Activities
• Final Thoughts

Travel & Logistics

Before getting into the specifics of my routing, it’s worth spending a moment on the logistics of getting to Espiritu Santo in general, because it’s not a simple destination regardless of where you’re coming from.

For Australian divers, it’s relatively straightforward — there are direct flights from Brisbane to Santo that bypass Port Vila entirely, which is a significant advantage. The catch is that this route only runs roughly twice a week, so if you miss it or run into problems, you could be stuck waiting. Still, compared to the US routing options, Australian divers have it pretty easy.

For those of us in the US, there are essentially two options to consider when planning your routing.

The first is to route through Fiji — fly to Nadi, connect to Port Vila, and then take a separate flight up to Santo. Given normal flight times and schedules, this will likely require an overnight in Port Vila, and you’ll need to retrieve all of your luggage and re-check it on Air Vanuatu for the onward flight to Santo. There are also tight (and enforced) restrictions on baggage limits on Air Vanuatu flights in both directions. If you want to ensure your luggage makes it with you on those domestic Vanuatu flights, it is generally a good idea to prepay extra luggage fees.

The second option is to fly from the US to Brisbane and then take the direct Brisbane-Santo flight, skipping Port Vila altogether. The Brisbane route sounds cleaner on paper, but flights from LAX to Brisbane can be infrequent and/or expensive depending on when you’re traveling. Adding a domestic connection (say, LAX-SFO-Brisbane) just means a third flight and more things that can go wrong. Either way, a night in Brisbane is likely given the international flight timing. There’s no perfect answer — check both options when booking and weigh the cost and schedule trade-offs at the time.

One nice thing about both the Fiji and Brisbane routings: the transpacific legs tend to depart late at night, which means you board already tired and are more likely to get at least some sleep on what is a 10-11 hour flight (NAN) or 13+ hour flight (BNE). Small comfort, but worth knowing.

I chose to route through Fiji, and I was flying business class on Fiji Air with top-tier OneWorld status. What could possibly go wrong? 😄

Pro Tip: If you transit through Nadi Airport (NAN) and want to leave the terminal during a layover, be aware that Fiji immigration policy requires you to retrieve your checked bags if you clear immigration — even on a connecting flight. Practically speaking, this means leaving to a nearby hotel risks your bags going standby. I learned this the hard way after booking a non-refundable room at the Tokatoka Hotel. File that one under ‘things nobody tells you before you go.’

Outbound

I departed LAX at 11:55pm on June 24 on Fiji Air, which is honestly the ideal time to leave for a long transpacific flight — I boarded, got settled, and was asleep shortly after we were over the Pacific. I have heard generally good things about the Fiji Air business class onboard product, and I flew them years ago with a good experience, but I genuinely can’t tell you much about this particular flight because I slept through most of it. No complaints there.

The 7-hour layover in Nadi was a different story. As noted above, I had pre-booked a room at the Tokatoka Hotel specifically to get a shower and some proper rest during the layover — but the immigration policy made that impractical. Instead, I spent four or five hours in the Fiji Airways Lounge, which was pretty good. There were different food options which were all pretty good for an airport lounge, and — importantly — there are showers available (at least one in the men’s room; I’d assume the same on the ladies’ side). There’s no great place to sleep in the Nadi airport proper, but along two walls of the lounge there are eight to ten bench-style sofa seats with small pillows. Not exactly a bed, but I managed to lie down and rest for about an hour, which is probably the best you’re going to do airside.

Pro Tip: If you have a long layover in Nadi and access to the Fiji Airways Lounge, take advantage of the showers and the bench seating. Don’t bother booking an off-airport hotel unless you are willing to go through the bag retrieval process — it’s more hassle than it’s worth for a layover that doesn’t involve an overnight stay.

The second leg NAN-VLI flight was uneventful and I was ready to get to my hotel with my gear and get some rest after a long flight, a 7 hour layover, and then another shorter flight.

Arriving in Port Vila, however, is where things went sideways — and stayed that way for the better part of two days. All three of my checked bags failed to arrive. I was apparently the only person whose bags hadn’t arrived since I was the only person left in baggage claim when the carousel stopped and my bags were nowhere in sight. When I went to find somebody to help, the only option was to scan a QR code to make a claim. I eventually exited through customs and found a Fiji Air representative. It was, to put it charitably, a total mess. I was told to go ahead and catch my flight to Santo the next morning and that the bags would follow. So I checked into the Grand Hotel & Casino in Port Vila for the night and tried to stay optimistic.

The evidence:

The next morning, I boarded my 7:30am Air Vanuatu flight from Port Vila to Santo — which was delayed four hours — with essentially nothing to do at VLI airport while waiting and not much in terms of food options. I loved the “Straight Outta Vanuatu” T-Shirt on the kid waiting for the flight. I eventually arrived in Santo, sans dive gear and luggage, and spent the next day and a half making phone calls trying to locate my gear and have it delivered.

After getting to Santo and to the hotel, when I finally got someone from Fiji Air’s baggage handling department on the phone, they offered two explanations. First: a tight connection in Nadi. My response: I had a seven-hour layover. Second: excess weight meant they had to leave some bags behind. This explanation is at least plausible, but consider the context — I was flying business class with top-tier OneWorld status, which comes with the most generous baggage allowances available. Somehow, I was the only passenger that didn’t have their bags loaded. And when I had cleared the transit line in Nadi, an airport official had confirmed that all three bags were checked. They had definitely made it to the airport in Nadi. They just didn’t get loaded.

Pro Tip: I always put Apple AirTag devices in my checked luggage, which I strongly recommend — they definitely help, and in this case actually allowed me to tell Fiji Air where my bags were. However, it’s important to understand the technology’s limitations. AirTags don’t transmit their location independently — they rely on nearby Apple devices to ping their location and provide updates. If the airport is quiet or nobody with an iPhone happens to walk past your bags, you won’t get any updates. This led to more than a few false moments of optimism on my end — “my last update was two hours ago, maybe the bags are on the flight!” — when in reality, the bags hadn’t moved an inch and nobody had simply walked near them. Helpful technology, but manage your expectations accordingly. I would also take a picture of your bags before you give them to the airline so you can send them to the lost baggage personnel to help identify them.

My bags arrived in Santo at the end of the following day — roughly 36 hours after I did. Pacific Dive very kindly offered to loan me open circuit recreational diving gear in the interim so I wouldn’t lose any dive days, which I appreciated, but given that I was diving a rebreather and all of my dive gear (masks, fins, wetsuits, etc) was delayed, there wasn’t much point. I waited it out and lost about a day and a half of diving as a result.

There are two big challenges to getting your luggage in this situation. The first is that there is only one flight a day from Nadi to Port Vila. The second is that there are only one or two flights a day on Air Vanuatu from Port Vila to Santo — and it’s a different airline entirely. Guess who spent more than ten phone calls coordinating the handoffs and tracking down his bags? 😄

The truly remarkable moment came on my return trip. When I checked my bags at Port Vila airport for the flight to Nadi, I mentioned to the agent that I’d had issues with my bags not making it on the outbound. His response, delivered with complete casualness: “Oh yes, they often don’t load bags on the outbound due to weight restrictions, but we always make sure every bag gets on for the flights back to Nadi.”

Let that sink in for a moment. This is apparently just… a thing that happens. Routinely. And the kicker? The outbound flight from Nadi to Port Vila was operated on a 737. The return flight from Port Vila to Nadi — which, per the agent, always gets every bag on — was on a smaller ATR-72. I’ll let you draw your own conclusions.

Pro Tip: If you are routing through Fiji Air and checking significant gear, I would strongly encourage you to do everything possible to get your bags on the plane. Confirm at check-in, confirm at the gate if possible, and have a contingency plan. The onboard experience appears to be solid, and in my experience the return routing was completely without incident — but the outbound baggage handling left a lot to be desired.

Return

As if the baggage problem wasn’t enough, there was one more chapter in the Fiji Air saga. About three to four days before my scheduled July 5th departure, I decided to try to change my flight home by one day to July 6th to make up for some of the diving time lost to the baggage debacle. Fiji Air had availability online, so I called reservations. They confirmed they could make the change — but it would need approval from “Customer Care” to waive the change fee, which was significant.

“Can you transfer me to Customer Care?” I asked.

“No, sir, you can’t reach them directly.”

Let that sink in for a moment. An organization called Customer Care that won’t speak with customers.

I opened a case and was told someone would call me back in two to three days. I didn’t have two to three days. What followed was two days of escalation attempts, requests to speak with managers (also unavailable, also “going to call back”), and repeated promises of callbacks — sometimes “within the hour” — that never came. At one point, Fiji Air’s own system had my return reservation listed on both July 5th and July 6th simultaneously, which did wonders for my confidence. Over three days I made somewhere between ten and fifteen calls. Every agent acknowledged it was a bad experience and I kept hearing from all of them “I’m sorry” — which was nice but didn’t solve anything. Not one was able to make the simple decision to change my flight by a single day.

In the end I decided to just extend my stay by a day anyway — changing the hotel and Air Vanuatu flights on my own — and deal with the Fiji Air ticket separately. And with that, I was finally done fighting with airlines and could just enjoy getting home.

The return trip itself was blessedly uneventful by comparison. Air Vanuatu from Santo to Port Vila, then a seven-hour layover in Vila before catching the Fiji Air evening flight to Nadi and connecting on to LAX, arriving home right around 1pm on July 6th — one day later than originally planned, but I did appreciate the extra dives.

I made good use of the Vila layover. Vanuatu Terminal Services (VTS), located right at the airport, offers luggage storage for 500 Vatu per bag — a very handy service if you want to roam freely without dragging your gear around. From there, I grabbed a taxi out to Hideaway Island, about 15 minutes from the airport, which I’ll cover in the Additional Activities section. It was a good way to kill a few hours before an evening flight.

Pro Tip: VTS luggage storage at VLI airport is well worth using if you have a long layover on the way home. 500 Vatu per bag, right at the terminal — straightforward, secure, and convenient. With a lot of luggage, I loaded everything onto a cart and left the entire cart with VTS so I could wheel it all back when I returned. Note that the sidewalks are uneven, so getting your luggage to and from storage can take a bit of effort.

The onboard experience, as I mentioned, was perfectly fine. Everything else with Fiji Air? I’ll let the story speak for itself.

Accommodation

I stayed at the Espiritu Hotel in Luganville for eight nights (June 27 – July 5), and I would recommend it. It is probably the nicest hotel in the area and is ideally situated — walking distance from a handful of restaurants, and close enough to shops where you can pick up water, snacks, and other supplies without needing a taxi. The Pacific Dive office is located in the lobby, which makes coordinating your diving day convenient.

I was initially placed in room 301, which was nice but faced the street and was a bit noisy for my taste. The staff were very accommodating and moved me to room 305 — a larger room at the back of the hotel and considerably quieter. The photo on the left is room 301 and the two on the right are room 305.

Pro Tip: When booking at the Espiritu, request a back-facing room. You’ll thank yourself later.

The hotel has different room categories. I originally booked a Deluxe Room on the third (top) floor, but after requesting a quieter room was moved to a Deluxe Family Room — also on the top floor but considerably larger, with a queen bed and two singles. For groups or buddy pairs traveling together, the Family Room is worth considering since you can split the cost and save some money. At the time of booking, my 8-night stay came to VUV 181,456 — approximately $1,520 USD at the time, or roughly $190 per night including taxes. For a well-located, comfortable hotel in Santo with breakfast included, that’s a reasonable rate.

The hotel has a pool on property, and gear storage is available if needed. I personally left my dive gear at the Pacific Dive shop, which is about a ten to fifteen minute drive from the hotel, but the option is there if you prefer to keep everything on-site.

Food & Dining

I ate most of my meals at the Espiritu Hotel restaurant, which I would call a solid choice — good variety, daily specials, and nothing disappointing across the entire stay. All things considered, it is probably the best food option in the area, and the convenience of having it right on property is hard to beat. For Friday and Saturday night, they also had some live music in the dining area by the pool which was nice.

Here’s a sample of the food at the Espiritu Hotel:

I did venture out to two other nearby restaurants during the trip, mostly out of curiosity.

The first was Smugglers Seafood Restaurant & Bar, which has a beautiful setting — I went on a Tuesday evening and had a stunning view of the moon rising over the water. The food was good; I ordered a shrimp and rice dish that I enjoyed. The one caveat is that I was literally the only person there, which made for a slightly odd atmosphere. Whether that was a function of it being a Tuesday, the off-season, or something else entirely, I can’t say — but I wouldn’t let it put you off. The setting alone is worth a visit on the right night.

The second was The Sandbar, a BBQ and pizza spot that looked like it would be a great party and nightlife venue with a crowd. I went on a Wednesday and, once again, found myself in an almost completely empty restaurant. I ordered the ribs, which were good but not memorable enough to make me want to go back. Same caveat as Smugglers — off-season and midweek probably explain the ghost town vibe more than anything else.

One other option worth mentioning is the LCM, a local chain supermarket within a short walk from the hotel. I picked up some food to go on one occasion and ate it back at the hotel — it was surprisingly good and a solid budget option if you want a break from restaurant dining.

I didn’t dine at the Deco Lodge, the other main hotel in the area, but fellow divers staying there mentioned the food was good — primarily pizza and tapas from what I gathered. Worth knowing if you end up staying there instead.

Dive Operations

The Operator

I dove with Pacific Dive for the entirety of the trip, and I would recommend them — particularly for technical divers. Unlike some of the other operators in Santo who use boats to access the Coolidge, Pacific Dive does the Coolidge as a shore dive, and they are fully equipped for technical diving: helium, oxygen, rebreather-compatible gases, appropriate bailout fills, and sofnolime are all available. If you are planning serious deco dives or diving a rebreather, Pacific Dive is, as far as I know, the only proper choice in Santo.

Pacific Dive — rebreather prep, the gas supply operation, and checking a fill

Pro Tip: Other operators in Santo do offer boat diving on the Coolidge, which eliminates the shore entry. However, if you are a technical diver — particularly a rebreather diver — do your homework before booking. Pacific Dive has the gases, the equipment, and the expertise.

The day-to-day operation was run by Joel, who was a pleasure to work with — reliable, helpful, and easy to coordinate with each morning. My personal guide for all of my Coolidge dives was Max, who dove backmount doubles and was an excellent diver and guide. Max knew the wreck inside and out, had a great sense of humor, and consistently took me to interesting locations and pointed out artifacts I would never have found on my own. Both Joel and Max are a big part of what made the trip work as well as it did.

Pacific Dive’s office is conveniently located in the lobby of the Espiritu Hotel, which made the daily logistics very straightforward. I would meet Joel at 8am in the hotel lobby, and we would drive out to the dive site — about ten to fifteen minutes away — sometimes with other divers along for the ride, occasionally picking up guests from the Deco Lodge or elsewhere en route.

I purchased a 12-dive package with a private guide, which made sense given that I was planning deeper, longer dives with decompression and extended penetration inside the ship. I didn’t want to be constrained by recreational dive profiles or tied to a group schedule. In the end I completed ten of the twelve dives — the two unused dives were largely a consequence of the day and a half lost to the Fiji Air baggage situation. The Corsair dive was a boat dive rather than a shore dive and would normally carry an extra surcharge, but Pacific Dive graciously called it even against the unused prepaid dives — a generous gesture that I appreciated.

The Diving

The Coolidge is a shore dive from the Pacific Dive operation, which is both a blessing and a challenge. On the plus side, there are no boat transit times and you can get in the water quickly. The entry point is well organized — you gear up at the dive shop, walk out toward a marker buoy, and when the water reaches about four to five feet deep you put your fins on and follow the line down to a staging area at twenty feet deep. This is where the last deco stop occurs and where Pacific Dive has set up infrastructure — ropes, tank storage, and the like. From there, a line runs out to the bow of the ship at around sixty feet, which is where the dive proper begins. You do your dive, return to the bow, and follow the line back to the staging area, completing your deco stops on the way in.

It is difficult to see given the resolution of the photo and the distances, but I have marked the entry point (“20 foot stop”) and then bow, midships, and stern markers in the photo below. It is very much low tide at this point. The tidal swing is pretty big. Later in the day, that area in the foreground would be 1-2 feet deep.

The challenge is that shore diving with a rebreather, bailout tanks, and a heavy camera rig is no small feat — especially on an uneven, sandy bottom with rocks and coral that requires careful footing. I’ll be honest: it’s not easy, particularly for a guy who is turning 59 in a couple of months. 😄

I dealt with this by staging my bailout tanks underwater for the duration of the trip rather than hauling them to and from shore each time. My rich bailout (Nitrox 50%) stayed clipped at sixty feet on the bow line and I would check the pressure whenever I started or ended a dive. My lean bailout lived at the twenty-foot staging area — I would pick it up on the way to the wreck and leave it after finishing decompression. And on days when I was doing two dives, I even secured my camera rig at the staging area between dives — attached via two connection points, because losing that rig was not an option.

Pro Tip: If you are doing multiple dives on the Coolidge as a technical diver, seriously consider staging your bailout tanks and camera gear underwater between dives rather than carrying everything to and from shore each time. It makes a significant difference. Also — bring a carabiner or clip for your fins so you can clip them to a shoulder D-ring during the entry and exit rather than trying to manage them in the shallows.

Surface intervals for divers doing decompression were three hours (two hours for recreational divers). Joel would drive me back to the hotel after the morning dive, I would rest and grab some lunch, and we would arrange a pickup time for the afternoon dive. It was a comfortable and well-organized rhythm that worked well across the trip. There are restaurants near the dive shop if divers want to grab lunch nearby between dives.

Gas, tank rentals (rebreather and bailout), sofnolime, and helium costs for the trip came to approximately 30,320 Vatu — roughly $250 USD — which I thought was very reasonable given the quantities involved.

A note on water temperature: when I was there, the water ran between 77-79°F and didn’t vary much with depth. I’m not sure how much it changes seasonally, so factor that in depending on when you plan to visit. I wore a 5mm wetsuit and found myself getting cold toward the end of longer decompression stops on 90+ minute dives — though I’ll admit that’s partly because I run cold, and partly because my 5mm is so old it’s probably only performing like a 3mm at this point. I actually left it at the dive shop rather than haul it home. For most divers, a 5mm or less should be perfectly comfortable.

The Wrecks

The three dive sites covered on this trip will each get a dedicated post after I publish this main Trip Report. Below is a summary table with links to the individual write-ups as they are published. Each post will cover the history of the wreck, the specifics of the dives, and my underwater photos.

Wreck	Photo
SS President Coolidge WW II Troop Transport Ship Depth : 60 – 220 feet
F4U Corsair WW II Aircraft Depth : 120 feet
Million Dollar Point WW II Equipment Dump Depth : 110 feet

Additional Activities

South Pacific WW II Museum

If you are diving the Coolidge, there is a good chance you already have more than a passing interest in WWII history — and if that’s the case, the South Pacific WWII Museum in Luganville is well worth a visit. It’s a small museum, but don’t let the size put you off. The curation and the quality of the artifacts on display are impressive, particularly given the scale of the operation. Talking with Marina Moli, one of the volunteer docents, gave me a much better sense of the history and the sheer scale of military operations at Espiritu Santo during the war. According to the museum and Marina, over 100,000 US troops were stationed on Espiritu Santo, while an estimated 500,000 servicemen and women passed through the islands of Vanuatu over the course of the war — a staggering number for a remote island nation in the South Pacific. For wreck divers who have just spent days swimming through jeeps, ammunition, and artillery inside the Coolidge, seeing that broader historical context presented topside adds a meaningful layer to the experience. Below are some photos from the museum, including the bell from the Coolidge, the steam whistle, and other artifacts.

Note that the museum is generally closed on weekends and is staffed by volunteers so plan your visit accordingly.

Hideaway Island, Port Vila

This one is a bit of a detour since it happened during my return layover in Port Vila rather than in Santo, but it’s worth mentioning for anyone facing a long layover at VLI on the way home (mine was seven hours). Hideaway Island is about a fifteen minute taxi ride from the airport, followed by a short five minute boat ride to the island itself. It’s unabashedly touristy — there’s a restaurant, various activities, and the general vibe of a place that caters squarely to visitors. But sometimes touristy is exactly what you need after a week of serious technical diving.

The highlight — and I say this without shame — is the world’s only underwater post office. You pick up a waterproof postcard, write your message, and then swim or snorkel out to mail it underwater. Is it kitschy? Absolutely. Did I do it? Also absolutely. It killed some time, it was genuinely fun, and it made for a good story. If you have a few hours to burn at VLI, you could do a lot worse. Note that there aren’t any private showers for day-use visitors — just an outdoor shower by the restrooms — so plan accordingly if you want to freshen up before your onward flight.

Hideaway Island — the colorful promotional banner, the beach and facilities, the beach entry and sign, its location relative to VLI airport, and the waterproof postcards you can mail underwater

Final Thoughts

I had wanted to dive the SS President Coolidge for close to ten years, and it did not disappoint. It deserves every bit of its reputation as one of the consistently listed “top ten” wreck dives in the world — the sheer scale of the wreck, the penetration possibilities, the artifacts, and the history all combine to make it a genuinely special dive destination. Where else can you swim past a five-inch deck gun and forty-millimeter anti-aircraft mounts, duck inside a cargo hold full of jeeps and an upside-down tank, and then fin your way into the main dining hall to see chandeliers and the famous Lady figurine? It’s a remarkable combination of military hardware and luxury liner history that you won’t find anywhere else. I’ve dived the Britannic, which is also a converted luxury liner, but the Coolidge is a different experience entirely — fully converted, fully operational as a troopship when she sank, open to real penetration diving in a way that the Britannic simply isn’t, and significantly shallower.

That said, getting there is not trivial — and I say that as someone who just lived through one of the more chaotic travel experiences of recent memory, and somebody who has been to really remote places like Bikini Atoll and Antarctica. The routing options from the US are limited, the airlines and connections involved add layers of complexity, and as I discovered, things can go wrong in ways that cost you diving time. Go in with a plan, build in contingency, prepay your baggage fees on Air Vanuatu, and put fresh batteries in your AirTags. 😄

For rebreather divers who do happen to check a majority of their gear, you could be waiting for your gear, full stop. Just know that going in.

I don’t think you will generally find the Coolidge overrun with divers, particularly divers coming from the US. There is a steady contingent of Australian divers who make the trip regularly — for them it’s a relatively straightforward destination — but for US-based divers it remains off the beaten path in the best possible way. The remoteness that makes getting there complicated is also part of what makes it special.

On the ground, I have no hesitation recommending both the Espiritu Hotel and Pacific Dive. The Espiritu is comfortable, well-located, and has the best food in the area — and having the Pacific Dive office right in the lobby makes the daily logistics seamless. Pacific Dive themselves were excellent across the board. Joel ran a smooth operation and Max was an outstanding guide — knowledgeable, funny, and genuinely passionate about the wreck. If you are a technical diver, Pacific Dive is the operator you want.

Would I go back? The honest answer is yes — there is more of the Coolidge to explore, and I’d love to return with a fresh wetsuit and a full twelve dives. 😄 That said, I don’t have any concrete plans to return given other projects I’m working on. If I did go back, I would probably shift my focus away from the Coolidge and toward the other aircraft wrecks in the area that I’ve heard about — including a PBY Catalina, a Wildcat, a Dauntless, and others — with the goal of building photogrammetry models of each. I’d also like to work in a stop in Port Vila to dive the Star of Russia wreck, which I haven’t seen yet. A trip that combined both cities and a collection of new-to-me wrecks would be a compelling reason to make the journey again. But even as a first visit, this was a trip worth taking. I’m glad I finally made it happen.

Thanks To…

A few people deserve recognition for making this trip work as well as it did.

My Wife — it isn’t easy managing the day-to-day when I’m gone and unable to pitch in. I appreciate that she holds down the fort while I’m traveling.

Joel and the team at Pacific Dive — for running a smooth operation and having everything a technical diver needs. If you are heading to Santo, look them up.

Max — for being an outstanding guide throughout the trip. His knowledge of the Coolidge, patience with my camera stops, and sense of humor made every dive better.

The staff at the Espiritu Hotel — for being accommodating when I asked to switch rooms and for generally making eight nights very comfortable. They always had a smile and a “Mr. Brett — how are you doing?!” which never got old.

Marina Moli at the WWII Museum — for taking the time to share the history of Espiritu Santo during the war. It added a lot to the overall experience.

As always, I have no financial relationship with any of the operators, hotels, or businesses mentioned in this post. All opinions are my own.

AI Transparency

This post was drafted with the assistance of Claude (Anthropic) based on detailed notes, dive logs, and conversation. All facts, opinions, and experiences are my own. The AI helped with structure, editing, and prose refinement. Some photos were edited using AI features in Lightroom (e.g., denoise).