{"id":87,"date":"2015-07-18T05:12:22","date_gmt":"2015-07-18T05:12:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.divehq.co.nz\/blog\/?p=87"},"modified":"2015-07-18T05:12:22","modified_gmt":"2015-07-18T05:12:22","slug":"one-for-the-bucket-list-vanuatu-president-coolidge-wreck","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/divehq.co.nz\/blog\/one-for-the-bucket-list-vanuatu-president-coolidge-wreck\/","title":{"rendered":"One for the Bucket List &#8211; Vanuatu President Coolidge Wreck"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"color: #000000;font-family: Times New Roman\">Nothing was going to prepare me for the\u00a0day I\u00a0descended on the wreck of the\u00a0President\u00a0Coolidge.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000;font-family: Times New Roman\">After a short 15min journey from our dive resort through the happiest little village in the world I found myself here. In beautiful landscaped gardens with an opening out to the golden beach\u00a0covered with broken glass bottles\u00a0washed up\u00a0left from the war, like there had been a serious party here 70 years ago. This place really is like\u00a0no other\u00a0I\u2019ve been before.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.divehq.co.nz\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/07\/coolidge.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"aligncenter size-medium wp-image-88\" src=\"http:\/\/www.divehq.co.nz\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/07\/coolidge-300x183.jpg\" alt=\"coolidge\" width=\"300\" height=\"183\" srcset=\"http:\/\/divehq.co.nz\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/07\/coolidge-300x183.jpg 300w, http:\/\/divehq.co.nz\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/07\/coolidge.jpg 775w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000;font-family: Times New Roman\">I was finally ticking off one of my bucket list dives.\u00a0I had six dives planned including one night dive.\u00a0Gearing up and entering the water I wasn\u2019t sure what to expect.\u00a0As the Coolidge came into view on that first\u00a0decent\u00a0its sheer size\u00a0and majesty were utterly overwhelming. With near 20m of visibility it became clear six dives would never be enough\u00a0to take it all in.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000;font-family: Times New Roman\">Through my six dives I explored several parts of the ship, diving the dining room, the medical supplies ,the engine room, the control room, cargo holds 1 and 2 and of course the impressive artillery adorning the upper deck.\u00a0The highlight for me was the Engine room \/ control room dive\u00a0we ducked and weaved our way through the inner workings of this fallen beauty. <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000;font-family: Times New Roman\">This ship being one\u00a0of the first of its kind to have enormous\u00a0electric turbine and diesel\u00a0engines made\u00a0for an exhilarating dive\u00a0between\u00a0two\u00a0flywheels\u00a0each bigger than\u00a0an elephant, then into the control\u00a0room\u00a0where there were\u00a0so many dials and leavers you wouldn\u2019t\u00a0know where to start,\u00a0on our way out of the wreck\u00a0we came across something else exploring the\u00a0decaying Tanks and Jeeps\u00a0in cargo hold 2 an enormous graceful turtle. That dive\u00a0definitely\u00a0had it all.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000;font-family: Times New Roman\">I\u00a0highly\u00a0recommend\u00a0Espirito\u00a0Santo, Vanuatu\u00a0as a\u00a0dive destination.\u00a0Shore dive\u00a0one of the\u00a0world\u2019s\u00a0largest and\u00a0most accessible WW2\u00a0Wrecks\u00a0with so much to explore there\u2019s always something new to discover. You\u2019ll love it.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>Mel Alps &#8211; Instructor at Dive HQ Christchurch<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Nothing was going to prepare me for the\u00a0day I\u00a0descended on the wreck of the\u00a0President\u00a0Coolidge. After a short 15min journey from our dive resort through the happiest little village in the world I found myself here. In beautiful landscaped gardens with an opening out to the golden beach\u00a0covered with broken glass bottles\u00a0washed up\u00a0left from the war, [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/divehq.co.nz\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/87"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/divehq.co.nz\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/divehq.co.nz\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/divehq.co.nz\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/divehq.co.nz\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=87"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/divehq.co.nz\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/87\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":89,"href":"http:\/\/divehq.co.nz\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/87\/revisions\/89"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/divehq.co.nz\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=87"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/divehq.co.nz\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=87"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/divehq.co.nz\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=87"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}