SS President Coolidge

The SS President Coolidge is the largest accessible shipwreck in the world for recreational and technical divers — a 199-meter former luxury ocean liner converted to a WWII troop transport that sank in October 1942 after striking American defensive mines in the harbor of Luganville on Espiritu Santo Island, Vanuatu. The ship now rests on a sloping sand and rock bottom with its bow beginning at approximately 21 meters and the stern dropping to 60 meters, creating a depth profile that spans the full range from accessible recreational diving to serious technical diving. The Coolidge was built in 1931 as one of the most luxurious ships on the trans-Pacific run, and when the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor led to its requisition as a troopship, the elegant first-class salons, staterooms, and art deco interiors were reconfigured for military transport. When it struck friendly mines in familiar harbor waters, the captain managed to run the ship aground to allow most of the 5,000 troops aboard to escape — only two men died — before the vessel slipped off the ledge and sank to its current resting position. The wreck contains an extraordinary collection of preserved artifacts: a jeep with intact rubber tires, a field gun, ceramic plates, ammunition, gas masks, uniforms, and most famously 'The Lady' — a large ceramic tile mosaic of a woman with a unicorn in the first-class bar that has become the iconic image of Coolidge diving. The hull's outer surfaces are now heavily colonized by soft corals and encrusting organisms, and the fish community throughout the wreck is spectacular. The Coolidge is a mandatory lifetime dive for any serious wreck diver.