We liked so much the experience of landing somewhere and already having booked where we would sleep at least that night, that before leaving Port Vila we had called ahead at the Tropicana hostel in Santo. The lady on the phone was very friendly and even organised to send someone to pick us up at the airport, mega luxury! So we retrieved our luggage (see the modern baggage counter in the pics) and hopped in the van, together with another tourist from our flight who had been talked into coming to the Tropicana by the driver (who also happened to be the owner). We didn’t know yet we had chosen a super place run by a wonderful lady and met our new best friend Ben.
We arrived at the Tropicana and realised the hostel is completely new, they opened only a couple months ago, so everything is pico bello. Sally the live-in manager is very nice and welcoming, we feel more like we are visiting an aunt then living in a hostel. Actually when we got there she had already booked diving for us for the next day (I had mentionned our intention to dive when I had called). I call that easy travelling!

We also socialised with the guy from the airport, Ben, who turned out to be a dive instructor also here to see the underwater, and a super friendly guy, despite being German. J Wer haette es gedacht? Das gibt’s! (pour les francophones qui me croient raciste, detrompez-vous, mais c’est trop long d’expliquer la relation suisse-allemande….)

So the next morning we were picked up at 8h00 and taken to the dive shop to prepare the equipment and sign the usual forms (“if you die no one can sue us” type of thing) and drove the couple kilometers to the USS Coolidge dive site. This american boat used to be a luxury liner and was transformed into a troop ship during WWII, before it sank just off the shore of Luganville. It’s supposed to be the most accessible and biggest wreck in the world. On the 1st dive we were taken on a general tour of the outside top part of the boat and saw some funny items like a gun, helmets, a gas mask. On the 2nd dive we went inside the wreck to see one of the statue from the ball room, also saw a line of toilets (?). Funny that before going down I thought a wreck would give me the creeps, but once underwater it didn’t feel that way, even inside the boat it was not really freaky. However I realised that wreck diving is not my thing, it mostly seems to me like just old rusty metal covered by corals. With exception of the night dive, this was special: there are gazillion of little fishies living in the wreck which light up at night, some bacteria in their cheeks or something that makes like a stroboscope. That was impressive to see, tons of little light flashes in an otherwise pitch dark environment.

We also dove at a site called Million Dollar point, which is basically a huge pile of american equipment: bulldozers, wheels, tanks, crates of Coke, etc. They say after WWII it was all offered to the local government who declined, and instead of carrying all back home it was just thrown into the ocean. Go figure.