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When I hosted an Australian traveller some years back, she told me she had taught on Vanuatu. Espiritu Santo, to be exact. I don’t quite remember her anymore, but I remember something she told me. There is a dive site on Espiritu Santo where you can see the equipment that the US military dumped after World War II. The place was called Million Dollar Point, because ‘a million dollars’ was dumped into it in the form of military assets.
I was intrigued. Normally, I dive for marine life, especially coral reefs. But I thought a dump site of discarded military equipment would be a very interesting, historically unusual site to dive. I thought little of it afterwards, since I didn’t know when I would make a trip to Vanuatu. It wasn’t exactly the most accessible place from Malaysia. And at the time, I knew very little about it.
But life has a way of picking my travel opportunities for me.
After the pandemic, Australia seemed to have decided that any Malaysian travelling solo regardless of travel history, employment, or disposable income, probably has nothing that would make them want to return. An eTA rejection with flight tickets already booked reminded me of the traveller I once hosted, and of Vanuatu and the unusual dive site in Espiritu Santo. While Vanuatu is hard to reach from Malaysia, I had tickets to eastern Australia already. From there, Vanuatu became an easy regional destination.
First impressions of Espiritu Santo
I arrived late in the day to Espiritu Santo. By that point, I was just glad I arrived at all, for the flight times changed several times.
Fortunately, I had chosen to stay at Million Dollar Point itself, at a beachside bed & breakfast called Million Dollar View. It was fairly close to Santo Pekoa airport. So at least the shaky flight times wasn’t too disruptive to my itinerary. (At least, if you consider having to arrive a whole day later than planned, ‘not too disruptive’.) There was an airport taxi service, and my host – accustomed as most Pacific hosts usually are to keeping an eye on the latest flight times – waited up for my arrival.
I didn’t see Luganville, and much of Espiritu Santo, until much later. Not that the town was particularly remarkable. But I did come away feeling like Luganville’s French influence was noticeable*, unlike in Port Vila. It wasn’t overt, but subtle and in the little things, like the mannerisms of the people, and the mix of vocabulary, and how the multilingual locals tended to favour French over English. And Espiritu Santo’s role in World War II history is still obvious on the island.
The ‘trash dump’ of Million Dollar Point
Conscious of my limited time on Espiritu Santo (even before losing a day off the itinerary), I limited my ambitions to the one place that I came for. What was this beach even like, where they dumped tanks and jeeps and ships and all manner of associated parts and gear?
Fairly nice, actually.
The beach at Million Dollar View is mainly coral fragments, becoming sandier close to the water’s edge. The bamboo-and-palm-thatch bungalows lie on the waterfront amidst the trees and vegetation of a traditional home garden. The only mangrove patch remaining on Espiritu Santo’s southern coastline is also here; the rest were deforested by Allied forces in World War II for strategic reasons, and never recovered since.
But the beach is different. Among the fragments of coral on the shoreline were also bits of rusting metal from ration cans of long ago, and pieces of glass, ground smooth over the decades – amber and green and white. While Million Dollar Point – strictly speaking – is the point along the shoreline next to Million Dollar View, the beaches are basically the same. Pieces of trash from long ago wash up along the same shoreline.
Why the US dumped their WW2 assets at Million Dollar Point
The ‘million dollar’ event was not the first time people dumped things at Million Dollar Point. There is a deep depression just off the point, basically an underwater pit where you can conveniently tip things into. So both the British and the French colonials used it as a trash dump, ever since industrialisation and its mass produced waste reached the island. Although back then, the mass produced goods and packaging were glass and metal. So when the Americans decided to ditch their equipment at the end of the war, it was the obvious location.
What isn’t as obvious, is why they trashed millions of dollars’ worth of perfectly usable equipment in the first place. Depending on the story, the answer is either pettiness, or capitalism.
Version 1: Who needs enemies when you have allies like these!
According to the first version, the Americans had a lot of military equipment stranded in Espiritu Santo when the war ended, which was costly to transport back to the mainland. But Vanuatu was a British-French territory at the time, both of whom were Allied partners. So they offered to sell them for cheap to their allies.
But the Brits and the French figured, why get it for cheap if you can get it for free? After all, the Americans would have to leave it behind regardless. So they both said, no thanks. However, somehow the Americans got wind of their collusion, and felt taken advantage of. Pissed off, they decided to dump it all into sea.
How pissed off were they? And how much equipment are we talking about? Let’s just say even after the US military de-mobilised from Vanuatu, they left a team on Espiritu Santo whose sole job was to dump the equipment into the sea, and it took them two years. Reportedly, they didn’t even bother draining the oil from the fuel tanks or anything before yeeting them all in.
Version 2: It’s better to waste resources than to lose profit margin!
I also heard an alternative version from the British dive manager at Pacific Dive. According to this version, the US military purchased the equipment under contract, but with no end date due to the war. Presumably, normally the suppliers would replace them after a certain period.
But the contract also forbids the military from re-selling the equipment as army surplus in their domestic market. This is so that the market for army surplus stuff doesn’t fall. This was why it was ‘too expensive’ to bring back the equipment, so the Americans dumped everything.
Personally, I think both versions could have been true. If they are both true, then it means that the equipment could have been used or scrapped on the mainland rather than completely wasted, were it not for a contract with military contractors. And even then, the equipment could still have been taken over by the British and French rather than completely wasted, if the colonial authority had been willing to pay even a token goodwill amount to take them.
But neither happened. So now it is an iconic dive site of Espiritu Santo. And to me, also the story of how so much waste happens for the stupidest reasons.
Could you see Million Dollar Point by snorkelling?
My guest had mentioned that she snorkelled over Million Dollar Point, and didn’t dive. So I tried that first. Indeed, there are random pieces that lie on the shallow sea bed around the point. Visibility wasn’t that great during my visit. But I could still see the shipwreck, and in the gloom I could make out jeeps and a vehicle with tracks – perhaps an excavator.
Interestingly, despite being 80 years later from the ‘million dollar’ dumping, not all the pieces have been reclaimed by nature. There is re-colonisation by coral reef, but it’s uneven. There are pieces now completely engulfed by healthy reef, but others are only covered with encrusting species and algae. The tyres especially, were conspicuously clean, which really calls to question the whole ‘reef tyre’ idea that was in vogue in the 80s.
Back on shore, I shared my observations with my European host. He affirmed that the ‘real stuff’, the big machines, are further down in the actual pit. I would need to dive to see them, but that much of it are actually below even recreational diving depths.
The nearest scuba shop to the iconic dive sites in Espiritu Santo
I was determined to dive in Vanuatu, since I felt it had been too long. Because of the pandemic shutdowns, I didn’t dive for two years since getting my Eco Dive certification. And even before that, I could only manage the occasional trip. I did dive in Phuket before coming to Vanuatu, because I actually meant to go to the Great Barrier Reef and wanted to ‘practice’ beforehand, but it wasn’t nearly enough (although, is there ‘enough diving’?).
Fortunately, my host told me that there is a scuba shop right off the coast to Espiritu Santo’s best dive site, and it’s even nearby. So actually, they’re near to both of the most iconic Espiritu Santo dive sites!
Pacific Dive is not only conveniently nearby to Million Dollar View, they’re also among the best dive centres I’ve dived with. Ironically, for anyone on vacation to get away from work, the British lead guy was the spitting image of my manager, right down to his mannerisms. They could have been twins. I told Jonathan this, to his great amusement (and possibly envy for his doppelgänger’s island life). In fact, I can’t remember his name now, because in my mind I remember him as “dive Jonathan”.
Anyhow, they seem really technically proficient and yet simultaneously super chill and gracious to less experienced divers, which don’t usually come together. On top of that, unlike my Pacific experience up to then, Pacific Dive has local Melanesian dive masters. One of them was our dive leader for the day’s dives. To make things even better (and maybe I was just lucky, because I came right when international travel re-opened), there was only one other diver there with me^, a German older man.
Unfortunately, Pacific Dive didn’t offer underwater photography. So, given that my GoPro was still broken, I have no dive photos for this story.
Espiritu Santo has the world’s best wreck dive
So what is the best dive site of Espiritu Santo? This is the wreck of the SS President Coolidge, which is also considered the best wreck dive in the world. The wreck is huge – the ship was 200m long – and it is still almost intact. Because it was run aground on the southern shore of Espiritu Santo, part of it is fairly shallow at around 20m deep. In fact, the wreck is just a shore dive from Pacific Dive’s location.
I was glad to dive in calm water for a change, after the ordeal of monsoon dives in Phuket. The more so since I had a partially stuffed nose. After the pandemic, as people began to travel again following a long period of isolation, many caught the flu. I was no exception. It was why my first two attempts (pre-Phuket) to dive in my own country were unsuccessful. Fortunately, after short trips to Indonesia and Thailand, I mostly got out of that phase by the time I got to Vanuatu.
Anyway, the sides of the ship are now colonised by sea life. The wreck was interesting in that all of the bits that were on the ship are basically still there. I wasn’t lucky to get great visibility that day. But we dived close to see the rifles, encrusted now with bryozoa and sponges, the gun turret, even artillery shells lying around.
But there were machines of life as well as of death. In a barrel on the deck were relics of a different kind: a radio, pieces of gas masks, crockery.
The story of SS Coolidge
‘Dive Jonathan’ told me the story of the wreck, back at the dive shop. The SS Coolidge wasn’t really a warship. It was actually a cruise liner, conscripted to become a WW2 troop carrier. One fateful day, its civilian captain was coming into port and thought the approach was too shallow. So he took the long way around.
But the route had Allied mines, which no one told him about. The ship struck a friendly mine, and began to sink. The captain decided to ground the ship, in order to save the most people. So he purposely steered the ship to shore. This is why the wreck is so shallow.
And it kind of worked. Only two people died from the sinking of the SS Coolidge. One was a fireman who happened to be in the engine room where the ship struck the mine. Presumably he died instantly from the explosion. The other was evacuating people out of the sick bay, and was the last one off the ship. Unfortunately, by that time the ship well and properly sank, and took the hero down. His skeleton was only recovered for burial in 2015.
It goes to show that sometimes a disaster happens not by some brilliant stratagem or malice, but just some stupid random chance.
The night dive I could have done
Apparently, if you dive into the cargo hold there are tanks and jeeps. K, my German fellow diver, had done this dive earlier. Being German, given its engineering culture, he didn’t think much of the robustness of the aged tanks in there. I decided not to comment on which tanks actually won the war. “Well, maybe it would be ok for the Russians^^,” he quipped.
But there is another unique dive you can do at the SS Coolidge wreck, if you’re coming to dive in Espiritu Santo anyway. “Come on a night dive,” urged ‘Dive Jonathan’. If you drop into the wreck at night, and turn off your lights, you can see a resident school of anglerfish.
I was very tempted. But I wasn’t sure I should, since I had not yet gotten around to taking a night diving course, and wasn’t sure diving into a wreck should be my first night dive. Still, if I was going to learn it, I could do worse than the supportive and patient Pacific Dive. But in the end, I remembered that I had a flight the next day, and decided to be cautious.
The dive at Million Dollar Point
Since I only had time for two dives on Espiritu Santo, my second dive site surely had to be Million Dollar Point itself. This was also a shore dive, for obvious reasons.
We went into the water at the other side of the point from Million Dollar View, where I was staying. The beach was very similar on either side, mainly coral fragments, with the same bits of glass ground smooth by the sea. K was critical of how no one had bothered to clean the beach. But there was almost no trash on the beach, only what was from the historical dump, which is what made it a unique site in the first place. Besides, more pieces will just wash in.
Still, it made me think of Oregon’s Glass Beach and wonder, at what point does glass dumped on a beach stops being trash, and becomes ‘sea glass’, and the beach a tourist attraction?
The mediocre visibility did not make for dramatic angles of the dumped gear. But as we descended, there’s definitely more to see than with snorkelling. I wondered how deep the pit was, for I couldn’t see where stuff ended. How many things were dumped, stacking on one another, such that the uppermost ones sit at diving depths? It was mind-boggling**.
The mystery of the leaking mask
There’s a reason why dive certification and dive experience are not equivalent things. I learned it diving in Rangiroa – how being thinner and much lighter than the other divers makes me more at risk of being wafted up by an updraft. You could teach that, I suppose. But only experience teaches you what it means.
I was still discovering such diving things, even coming up to my 50th dive. My mask was irritating me even during the SS Coolidge dive, trickling in water. It got worse at the start of the dive at Million Dollar Point. I opted not to sink, pausing to try and fix the mask. But the moment I sank to any meaningful depth, it began again.
I could feel my anxiety level rising, because I couldn’t figure out what was happening. I tried everything. The strap was tight on my head, and yet, water was leaking in. I could see K below, his body language showing impatience.
But our dive leader Jimmy ignored him, and signalled for me to take my time. Eventually, we surfaced to a shallow area, and he calmly said, “Take all the time you need.”
Frustrated by my ineffectual efforts, I finally removed my hair tie completely. And the problem was gone.
The strap was sitting just a tad above my hair bun, which this time out of all previous times, was a tiny bit higher. Which tilted the strap just a little bit – not enough that it didn’t feel tight, but just enough to open a wee hole on the side for water to seep in. WTF. And neither K nor Jimmy knew how to help, because they were both men and never experienced it.
Jimmy keeping his cool the whole time was very calming though. And at the end of the dive, he held out a hand with a courtly “Madame”, and assisted me back to shore as though into a ballroom.
South-South colonial understanding
I remember these things, because they contrasted with K’s remarks afterwards. He asked Jimmy why the local people didn’t ask for the gear, when the Americans were dumping them. Jimmy mentioned that the French and British were in charge then, and anyway his people didn’t know how to drive them back then. K turned to me and said, “You see, they don’t know the real story.” Turning back to him, he told Jimmy, “They weren’t smart enough.”
He told me about how cars in Vanuatu often have a jury-rigged strap as a substitute door handle – presumably as a fix when the original handles break – and that this is so in places like Papua and Timor as well. “They don’t bother getting things fixed properly,” he added, as though illustrating why the local people couldn’t see the value of the things being dumped by the Americans almost a century ago.
But I knew the subtext to that, because they used to say it about my people too.
Being ‘smart enough’
I doubted that the local Vanuatu people didn’t see how the equipment could be valuable. If they had been blackbirded all across the Pacific to work for European colonisers, they must know how to use some of it***. In the colonies, the natives or trafficked migrants were effectively the real working class, after all.
Instead, I knew that even if local people had asked for the equipment, they would not keep it for long. They were a colonised people; their masters would have taken it. Besides, electrical things are only useful where you have electricity, and ICE engines only useful if you have fuel. And as someone from a developing country that was poor not that long ago, I also knew why they substitute a strap for a door handle. Where is the factory that the replacement handle should come from? With what money shall it be bought?
It’s why China became the biggest trading partner of the developing world within a single generation. It’s why there’s a long queue of developing countries applying to join BRICS. For the natives do, in fact, know the equipment is valuable. And they do, in fact, prefer to fix things properly. The moment there is a way for the spare parts to be affordable, or that we could make such things for ourselves, we take that deal.
I reflect on Vanuatu, whose technological level was mesolithic at the time of colonisation by industrial nations. To catch up, they had to make a leap of a thousand years of technology progress, within a hundred. They’re doing it. I think that’s smart enough. And having the emotional stability to ignore an unhelpful person, to empathise with and help another – that’s pretty smart too.
And you know what, take all the time you need.
Notes:
* Vanuatu, formerly known as New Hebrides, was simultaneously colonised by Britain and France.
** One million tonnes, according to my ex-journalist host Gilbert.
*** According to Gilbert, the Ni-Vanuatu did repair work for the Americans during the war. Therefore, they did know how to use the vehicles.
^ Maybe it has something to do with being an introvert, but I always feel more comfortable when the dive group is small. It feels more relaxed, and less regimented. I find such dive centres are more likely to linger during the dive and you actually have time to look at things. Personally, I wish more dive centres would offer it specifically. I would actually pay more not to have to dive with an entire boatload of people and hurrying from place to place. If I hate joining big tours on land, I’m not going to suddenly like it underwater. I think the main reason I enjoyed my trek up Annapurna was because there was no other person with us, and my guide was absolutely fine with frequent stops to look at things rather than being the summit-chaser type.
^^ At the time of my trip to Vanuatu, it was several months since Russia invaded Ukraine. European media were publishing frequent reports on how obsolete the Russian tanks were.
Carbon offsetting information to Espiritu Santo, Vanuatu
My actual flights for this trip were slightly more convoluted. However, the best way to get to Vanuatu from Kuala Lumpur in the present day with the benefit of hindsight, is via Singapore and Sydney. This is because a direct flight from Kuala Lumpur to Sydney or Brisbane is more likely to result in layover time in Australia that might exceed the 8 hour visa-free period, requiring an eTA submission which has arbitrary results nowadays. To get to Espiritu Santo, fly onwards from Port Vila to Luganville. This itinerary produces carbon emissions of approximately 4,809 lbs CO2e. It costs about $39 to offset this.
An alternative itinerary for Vanuatu is to fly to Port Vila via Auckland, which is less risky since New Zealand allows visa free transit times that are more commensurate to Pacific flight connection schedules. This raises the overall emissions to Luganville to approximately 5,666 lbs CO2e. It costs about $45 to offset this. Note: It is now also possible to fly directly to Espiritu Santo from Auckland with Solomon Airlines.
Interestingly the story behing the sinking of the President Coolidge is way more involved than you were advised. I’ve been fortunate to dive the wreck many times and met some of the characters deeply involved with the after story of salvaging items from the wreck etc. The bast most detailed accounting I have found is unfortunately not in print at present but you might find a copy somewhere. really worth a read as it details a lot of Luganvilles history and that of Million Dollar Point
https://www.marlowesbooks.com/The-Lady-And-The-President.-The-Life-And-Loss-Of-The-S.S.-President-Coolidge-Stone-Peter-Book-182113?srsltid=AfmBOoqkKP2CgbErzK7GL6uDg79-5JTLVcioqIt5Jhni1h1yM7pqpnR3
Oooo more
gossiphistory! Thanks for sharing the book!What a fascinating place to dive! I’ve done a couple of smaller wreck dives, but nothing like this. I hate night diving but seeing the angler fish would be cool. (I just don’t like not being able to see around me.) Isn’t it funny how one comment made years ago can still impact us later in life.
Yes, it kind of is. Stuff we say, things we mention, stories we tell, you never know what comes out of these choices, and who is paying attention.
I’ve also only dived small wrecks before the Coolidge. Although I did dive the King Cruiser in Phuket but I don’t really count that one since the visibility was poor and I couldn’t really appreciate its size.
That’s the same reason I haven’t gotten around to learning night diving yet. I don’t know if it would freak me out to dive into darkness. Also the water is probably colder at night. (Is it?) I think I need to be in a phase when I’m diving a lot, and at maximum diving confidence haha and then I’d feel ready to try it! But I was very tempted by the anglerfish. Very, very tempted. Dive safety won out though. But very tempted.
Love the history of this dive site. I’m amazed by the amount of waste here, whichever story is true. The fact that they couldn’t bother draining the oil first is incredible–do you know what impact that had on the local marine life?
Right? A lot of brand new highly engineered materials, shipped over once, and then dumped in the sea. Such a waste.
I guess the positive side is that there couldn’t be that much oil inside the vehicles to begin with, even with that era’s terrible fuel economy and presumably large oil tanks of military machines. I could well believe they didn’t bother though. My previous profession was related to assessing and cleaning up oil contaminated land; I remember my US colleagues explaining some of the oldest contaminated sites they have on the mainland from back in the day, when the oil fields didn’t even bother building oil storage tanks, but just dug massive holes in the clay ground (“earth tanks”) and just used that as “tanks”, something that didn’t cross the minds of even the most environmentally negligent countries in Asia haha. People had a very different attitude about these things before the environmentalist movement in the 70s I guess.
Anyway, I’m not sure how much effect the oil had on the marine life, especially relative to whatever else they dumped in there. The good thing about oil is that it does biodegrade, unlike more persistent pollutants like heavy metals, PCBs in transformers, or whatever chemicals might have been in the tires, or even the munitions, if they dumped any of those in as well. On the other hand, at least much of the shallow debris have been reclaimed by coral, so hopefully by now it’s slowly recovering. And the local people still fish from the beach, which is still a fish landing beach, so even if they might not fish *at* the beach, the dumping might not have much more than localised impacts.
I so envy you all the divers. I wish I could experience all of that.
:) Yeah, the wreck sites usually require some commitment to get a diving license, unlike coral sites which might also be possible by snorkelling. But it’s not that hard to learn to dive, especially in Asia. It should take no more than a few days and it’s affordable in Southeast Asia. The main obstacle is psychological, whether you can relax about breathing underwater and not want to surface.
I’m also not into wreck dive as much, but I love to see how nature takes over. It makes me hopeful that Mother Earth will be able to fix what we humans have messed up. Anyhow, this is an incredible site, definitely something I’d love to try! Thanks for putting it on my radar :)
She can! She just needs time, and us stop getting in her way and making an ever bigger mess.
I prefer coral reefs and lagoons, myself. But these sites are unique and I think worth diving even if you don’t usually go for wrecks.
I also dive for marine life. And most of the interesting WW2 stuff is in deep spots on the ocean bed. So iti would be interesting to dive here and see all this. And hopefully some fish have made this relic their home!
Is it? I’m not really familiar with WW2 dive sites generally, really the only sites I know are these ones haha. I guess this shallow site is very special then. But SS Coolidge is definitely cool, with and without fish. You actually need several dives to really see it properly since it’s so large. I didn’t know about it in advance and didn’t plan accordingly.
Hai Teja, this is a really good read for an underrated island nation (that not many anak Malaysia knows of) :D
About the Australian ETA, IIRC it is because of illegal immigration. Last I heard there’s over 30,000 Malaysian nationals illegally residing in the country.
I lurk in Malaysian Chinese travel communities, everyone there is also frustrated! One girl travelling solo actually has to get a letter of guarantee from her college & her father promising that she will return, in order for her ETA to be approved. Many people there recommended joining tour groups because at least it’s proof to the Australian authorities that we really *are* tourists.
This was 2 years ago. Seeing your recent Vanuatu posts made me realize it’s still an issue today :(
Hopefully Malaysians can use their passport better – among developing nations, it’s already a miracle that we can enjoy visa-free access to places like Japan, Korea, EU…
Hi Ong! Yes, I know it is probably because of the overstayers, and actually this trip was a 2022 trip even though I’m only now writing about it. I just wish they had been a lot more clear and upfront after the pandemic that eTA will not be approved for us like it was previously, rather than making it seem like we still have “visa free” travel status when actually the eTA is basically a pseudo-visa now. It’s kind of funny that I easily passed the far more onerous visa application for the US (which I had to get for work reasons), and yet not ‘just’ an eTA to Australia! Oh well. Travel life is strange that way.
To be honest, I don’t prefer to go to “rich country” places, unlike most urban Malaysians. I mean, Europe is worth visiting, but life is short – repeat visits have to justify itself against other deeply fascinating destinations. Aside from the Great Barrier Reef, the only reason I have gone to Australia multiple times, is because I take the opportunity to see my friends there while *on the way* to my real destinations further in the Pacific.
Therefore, there is no way I would ever join a tour group just to be able to get an Australian eTA, because I really dislike going on tour groups, and besides tourism (even though Australia does have cool places to see) is not really why I go there, it’s just the secondary thing I do since I’m there already to see friends. Instead, I would rather go to the ~170 other countries we can go to without it. We actually have a very good diplomatic standing worldwide (the real whole world, not just the western world), all things considered, so I don’t consider it a ‘miracle’ that we have a decent passport strength. In fact, I hope my blog helps our people to learn that the world is a lot bigger and far more interesting than the usual places we think of to visit. I probably would never be able to see all the places I want to even in just the visa-free countries, so I don’t really mind if one or two countries take themselves out of the running.
I’m just sad that I won’t see most of my Australian friends anymore, since they can’t afford to travel either nowadays, what with the inflation and the declining economy there. The only time I’ve seen any of them recently, is because they came into our region. Though I might see another friend & ex colleague again – but it would probably be in Africa instead of Australia.