SS President Coolidge

The SS President Coolidge is one of the most accessible and beginner-friendly sections of Vanuatu's most celebrated dive site — a 199-meter American luxury liner converted into a troop transport that struck friendly mines and sank in the harbor of Luganville, Espiritu Santo in October 1942, creating the largest and most historically significant recreational wreck dive in the Pacific. The Coolidge was originally constructed in 1931 as one of the finest passenger liners on the trans-Pacific route, its first-class salons, swimming pool, and art deco interior representing the pinnacle of ocean travel luxury. When war came, the ship was requisitioned and converted for troop transport, and its loss on American-laid defensive mines in a harbor it should have known was mined remains one of the more tragic accidents of the Pacific campaign. Today the wreck rests in 21 to 60 meters of water in Santo Harbour, and its sheer scale — the length of two football fields — means that different sections of the ship offer radically different diving experiences depending on depth and access point. The beginner-accessible portions of the Coolidge are the shallower sections near the bow, where the upper decks begin at around 21 meters and the ship's superstructure creates the visual drama of wreck diving at its most impressive without requiring the depth management of the deeper stern sections. The interior of the Coolidge contains extraordinary preserved artifacts: china, ammunition, jeeps, a field gun, and the famous 'The Lady' ceramic mosaic are all accessible with appropriate guide support. The wreck has been progressively colonized by coral and marine life, and the fish community throughout the upper sections is rich and photogenic.