Charlies & Cindys reef

I and Annika are not as keen on wrecks as the guys, so on the last diving day we all decided to do some coral diving. We went with Aquamarine Divecenter as Allan Powers’s boat was broken. The corals were very beautiful but relatively new and not too colour full. We went to two spots, Charlie’s reef and Cindy’s reef. Charlie’s reef had much more corals and also seemed to be a very large reef. Some corals got really big in this place as you can see. The second dive was at Cindy’s reef, which had more fish and was rather rich in Clams. The island you can see is Aore Island, which is just opposite to Luganville, where we stayed.

Blue Hole

Except for diving we did two excursions. The first one was to a freshwater spring called the Blue Holes. We asked to rent the guides car as we thought it would be more fun to go by ourselves. The only problem was that there were no road signs or notices once you got in to a certain area, so it took us a little while to find the water in the middle of the jungle. Going around Santo there were quite a few signs of WWII. The roads that were now rather bad seemed in fact to have been pretty good in the past, judging by the concrete marks. We also saw several supply sheds and landingfields. Even more clear was the effect on the natural environment. The whole rainforest was covered in "military cover leaves" and mostly looked like a large Paintball zone. Anders and Markus were both running around checking the roads and surroundings while I and Annika were sitting in the car eating cookies. We dived in the holes and the visibility was really amazing. You could in fact see the leaves in the trees when looking up from 18 metres depth. Above you can see some of the photos on Anders practicing UW photogtraphy, as well as a self portrait by Markus.

After the Blue Holes we drove on to a beach called Champagne beach, which is on the north-eastern side of the island. The beach is supposedly one of the most beautiful beaches in the Pacific and the sand grains were very small and white. It was really nice to go for a swim!

Million Dollar Point

The third day of diving we decided to leave the luxory liner SS President Coolidge to dive at Million Dollar Point.
The place has got its name as the Americans dumped millions of dollars worth of equipment at the end of WWII. The cost of shipping it home was too high and according to our guide the Americans tried to sell everything to the French at an unreasonably high price. When the French came back with a lower offer the Americans were offended and decided to dump everything into the sea. Maybe not the best for the environment but fun for scuba divers as the bottom from 15 to 42 metres is covered with cars, jeeps, boats, trucks and so on.
The spots also attracts sea life and we saw a lot of corals. Anders and Annika even saw a turtle, when Markus and I were stuffing around with the camera.

We had a good time diving the MM$Point even though we were longing for more reefs and colourful fish at this point.

Coral Gardens

When scuba diving deep, one always has to ascend slowly and preferably stay some time at around 5 metres depth. Luckily, there was a small coral garden on the way up from President Coolidge. I think I and Annika both enjoyed seeing some fish and corals and not just wreck parts. It was particularly many Clown fish, or now commonly known as Nemos as well as some Swedish fish.








It was also a great opportunity for me and Markus to practice the settings on the camera, as you can not get any decent photos on automatic mode.

President Coolidge

The highlight of our trip was diving the SS President Coolidge, a 198 meters long shipwreck. The ship was actually a luxury cruise liner built in 1931. At that time it was one of America’s largest merchant ships and also one of the most luxurious, with swimming pools, telephones, beauty salons and art deco interiors. She was aimed for Americans wanting a holiday in the pacific and she was one of the fastest boats available. In the early parts of World War II she was used for evacuating Americans from Hong Kong and Asia. In June 1941 she went into service with the American Army and after Pearl Harbour she was rebuilt and stripped of all her luxury to become a troop ship. She could in fact carry over 5000 troops when the reconstruction was finished. At that time the entrance into Luganville (the largest village in Espiritu Santo), where the Americans had one of their bases, was filled with mines to prevent the Japanese from entering. As the weather conditions were not that great when entering the port in October 1942 the captain decided to enter between two other islands than usual. President Coolidge hit a friendly mine and sank in less than 90 minutes. There was however not any victims as the ship headed for the beach and coral reefs and many could walk ashore. When high tide came the ship however tipped over and is now lying on its port side. Salvation operations removed quite a few objects, such as propellers and electric motors from the ship after the war, but the Vanuatu government declared that no such things were allowed after 1983 and the wreck is only used for recreational diving since.

We dived with a Divecenter called Allan Power and met Allan himself on several occasions. Allan is the most experienced diver on the wreck with more than 12000 dives. Allan also had a very nice dog which was a mix between a rotweiler and a dobberman. Our guide had also done around 8000 dives on the wreck. Unfortunately it did not make us feel any safer as we were offered to dive up to 60 metres on air and they thought it was enough that they knew the entrances and exits for a 50 metre long penetration. As it was only the four of us with the guide we set the limits ourselves however, so we did not dive deeper than 40 metres and only did minor penetrations.

We did the majority of the dives at starboard side or front deck, since the ship had tipped over as earlier mentioned. Particularly interesting was the promenade deck with old gasmasks, rifles, helmets etc. You can see some of these things here in the pictures below.

As you can see our guide also played a little trick on us standing as a bouncer with a rifle on the side when we entered the deck.

Markus and I were also very thrilled about finally getting our underwater camera house and starting to practice underwater photography. It was much trickier than I had ever imagined and I think we are going to struggle a little bit before we start taking some really nice pictures but Anders was of very good help, teaching us the basics. We also dived into the cargo holes which were filled with all sorts of military equipments such as trucks, SUVs etc. The most amazing dive was in my opinion the night dive we did into these cargo holes. We went into the water while it was a little bit light and started descending, torches off, against the wreck. Down by the wreck we were totally relying on the guide to show us the way as the only light source was the phosphorescence (mareld) in the water. For those of you who don’t know what phosphorescence is; it is a little bacterium that glows in the dark when there is movement. Down at 36 metres we swam into the second cargo hole and sat perfectly still. Then all of a sudden a school of fish that were glowing in the dark appeared in the shape of a hart just in front of us. I think they are called flash light fish as they keep flashing. We sat at the bottom for quite some time watching several schools of this glowing fish circle around us. Quite a few of them even followed us out of the cargo hole as we were ascending towards the surface. At about 10 metres the phosphorescence was really strong and we all moved as much as possible to see the magic sparkles. Unfortunately we could not take any pictures.

Vanuatu 31 jan -7 feb

Being so close to the South Pacific with some time in our hands, we decided to go to Vanuatu, a group of islands between Fiji and the Salomon Islands. We flew to a little island called Espiritu Santo to meet up with Anders and Annika, two friends from Gotland. We spent 5 days in Espirity Santo and then we flew to the main island Efate and stayed at a smaller island, Hideaway Island for a day, before flying back to Auckland. Vanuatu was great, even though very hot! About 31 degrees in the air as well as in the water.







On Espiritu Santo we stayed at a place called Coral Quay Resort which was very nice and owned by a French woman. We spent most of our time in Santo scuba diving, but we also enjoyed nice dinners with Anders and Annika as well as looking at all the beautiful flowers and sometimes more scary animals. The alndscape picture you can see is the view from our little cottage.
As we have just received our underwater camera house we have become quite crazy in taking photos and we are very keen on making some of you (speciellt ni, Karl och Julia), even more keen on diving with us in the future. Hence we will make several posts for the separate dive sites and excursions we made.