Million Dollar Point

When getting ready for a vacation it's only normal that one should undertake a bit of research about the intended destination.  It generally helps avoid unrealistic expectations and doing things like preparing for snow and ending up with sand.

In the case of Vanuatu I had a bit of inside knowledge thanks to a friend who is an accomplished diver (giving the thumbs-up on that score) and also a few workmates who had already been where I was intending to go.   I’d heard the diving was great, but all in all, the main north island wasn’t really very developed—fine by me.  One thing that really turns me off is the thought of ending up in the dead centre of resort hell, where everything is pre-packaged, sterilised and bears no resemblance to the place one is, after all, trying to visit.  Given the choice I’d much rather visit a spot that at least gives the option of glimpsing real life, not some crazy theme-park interpretation of it. 

Not forgetting that diving was one of the main aims of the trip, I wanted to find out more about what was on offer.  I’d heard about Million Dollar Point and the SS Coolidge but knew nothing more than these mysteries entities existed and were apparently not to be missed.  Both sites were closely related to events in the Second World War and, as it turns out and fortunately for the purposes of a good yarn, both have stories to back them up.

Million Dollar Point … what on earth is Million Dollar Point?

I’ll start with the fine print.  There are a number of different stories regarding the genesis of Million Dollar Point but they more or less agree the key elements.  Having picked through the more sensible and likely sounding parts of these stories I am now proud to present my own distilled narrative of how Million Dollar Point came to be.

During the Second World War, the United States established a sizeable garrison on Vanuatu’s north Island, Espiritu Santo.  As we’ve all heard, the Japanese military machine was marching, sailing and fighting its way through the Pacific with amazing success.  A number of ferocious battles were fought but the Japanese advance seemed completely unstoppable.  So successful was their effort that they managed to get as far as bombing Darwin in Australia’s north and managed to do this 64 times in total – yes that’s right … I didn’t know that either.  They also struck a number of targets along the north coast and didn’t stop there either. Possibly even more amazing is that they managed to deploy three mini submarines into Sydney’s harbour (a very long way from Japan) in an alleged attempt to sink the USS Chicago stationed there at the time.  At the time there were no doubts that the Japanese were a force with which to be reckoned.

In response to these advances, the Unites States, following the bombing of Pearl Harbour and subsequent entry into the War, established bases and garrisons on a number of key South Pacific islands.  The story goes that the US military predicted the final showdown would occur in Vanuatu and correspondingly they poured personnel and equipment into the area.  Depending on which story you hear, the US forces numbered anywhere between 100,000 and 500,000 at different times. Whatever the case, it’s fair to say that they had a significant military presence in Vanuatu.

As it turns out, the Japanese were stopped in the Solomon Islands and Vanuatu never saw active combat.  It did play a vital role in preserving supply lines, but by the end of the war there was a massive stockpile of military machinery and vehicles with nowhere to go.  Again there are a number of versions of what happened next depending on who is telling the story.  Either way, the hardware could not be taken back to the US and the French Government, at that time controlling Vanuatu, was given first dibs on buying it at a discount. 

Whatever transpired behinds the scenes we will probably never know but the rumour is that the French declined the cut-price purchase of all this equipment supposedly in a gamble to get the material for free.  The Americans might just leave it behind. No, really, they might really leave it behind, right?.  The whole thing sounds a little far fetched, but whatever the case, this didn’t happen.  The Americans built a large concrete wharf and in a scene reminiscent of some surreal black comedy drove all this equipment into the bay.  Literally drove it.  I’m talking about bricks on accelerator pedals, gear shifts slammed into drive and US servicemen scattering as trucks, bulldozers, cranes, jeeps and other vehicles rumbled their own way off the end of this wharf and descended into a watery resting place.  There are supposedly still cases of 1940s Coca Cola down there somewhere.  I don’t know - I didn’t see them.

So there you have it. Million Dollar Point is a graveyard for World War Two US military hardware that, in the intervening 65 years, has become one of the most significant and accessible man-made reefs in the world.  I’ll cut the chatter and give you a glimpse.  Oh … by the way … the name Million Dollar Point comes from the value of good scrapped in 1945 dollars. Do the maths yourself. It’s scary.

For the full set, click here

The first bit of wreckage seen when walking in from the shore

So, there's a truck, a bunch of tyres and more ...

The inside of this barge could be accessed.  We swam through this one.

More trucks ...

It's a good thing that soggy canon shells don't explode, no?

It's nice to see the coral reclaiming the wreckage. Nature gains ground.

How good a view is this is this for a decompression stop?

Still a good view for a decompression stop

And so off to Vanuatu

Why go there?

I guess it's probably a fair question to ask: why take a trip to Vanuatu? Aside from the obvious answer "why not?" it turns out that Vanuatu was one of those lucky "Plan B" choices, second to Western Australia. The original intention was to go diving at Ningaloo reef near Exmouth. During April the Whale Sharks migrate through the area and that, combined with the warm water and sunshine, seemed to be the perfect recipe for my first vacation in two years. Friends have raved about the reefs, the diving and of course the aquatic wildlife and it sounded perfect. As it turns out, however, the early April timeframe more or less coincided with school holidays and for a number of reasons it made the trip impractical. As is often the case this in turn became a blessing in disguise. Plans changed.

To cut a long story short, destinations were changed but the essence remained the same. It was definitely time to get back into the water and do some more diving. You see, when dad was sick I thought it would be good to get out and do something random. At that time, diving turned out to be it. I got my entry level diving certificate (PADI Open Water, for the divers out there) back in 2009 and in the process fell in love with the underwater world. Until that point I have not spent much time under the surface of the sea. During the training dives I found the underwater world to be thoroughly fascinating. Very few experiences in my life have come close to the serenity of diving. Being nearly weightless, floating through an alien landscape, breathing easily and being surrounded by weird and wonderful creatures (sometimes) is a journey of pure curiosity.

This last summer I made an effort with friends to get back into the water but only really got as far as snorkelling. Don't get me wrong, snorkelling is great. I love it and during the summer I got to see a side of Sydney and I’ve never explored before, snorkelling my way through Sydney’s beaches. It’s also been a great way to get into underwater photography, but it's still one stop short of diving. When snorkelling, the period underwater is really determined buy one’s lung capacity. Even for a decent pearl diver that’s only about 5 minutes at a time. For me … much less. But I digress. Needless to say, presented with the opportunity it would have been negligent to miss the chance to weave diving into it all.

So we committed to it. Tickets purchased, accommodation reserved and transfers organised. All there was left was to wait for it to come around. Of course, Air Vanuatu had a few hiccups along the way and cancelled, then reinstated our flights. Luckily, things were more or less going to plan.

And so off to Vanuatu, which is what this one is really all about.

Anticipation and small Chinese aircraft

I always love and hate the last few days before a holiday. For some reason, no amount of good planning and forewarning of others ever seems to prevent the last minute panic that accompanies leaving the office for even a relatively trivial amount of time. It’s usually about 5pm on the day before leaving that some calamity descends and does it’s best to prevent said vacation from occurring. On the flip side, despite this pre-vacation frenzy these days are, of course, the last few days before embarking on some sort of journey bearing the promise of new experiences … preferably good ones.

This time I discovered something interesting. Normally as I leave the office I send out the obligatory email that reads something like “I’m going to be out of the office until X April 2011. Please see Y if you have question regarding project Z” – you get the idea. Like a good little worker I routinely do this in the 5 seconds before shutting down and leaving for the last time, thus ensuring I’m available until the last possible moment to answer questions and help out those needing assistance. That is, of course, unless I forget to send the email. To avoid the hassle of logging in remotely and setting this up after the fact, I decided this time that I would send the email mid afternoon. Amazingly all questions, queries and panics stopped more or less instantly. It would appear that people regard the “Goodbye, I’m off” email as meaning that I’m really off, right then and there, so any further interaction is liable to yield nothing. Eureka! Just don’t spread it too far around. I’d hate for everyone to get wise to this and ruin the whole trick.

With packed bags, hopes high and not really knowing what it was going to be like when we got there, we set off to the airport, all the while hoping that Air Vanuatu had avoided any last minute changes of plan.

Step 1: Check in. No problems. Step 2: Immigration. No problems. Step 3: Security. No problems. Step 4: Wait at gate. Well, only really minor problems. Our flight, which was now going to go through Melbourne instead of direct to Port Vila had been delayed. Step 5: On plane. No problems other than tardiness. That’s OK in my book. Step 6: Melbourne. More delays. Late again. Still OK, since being a little late is not really a big deal. That is unless, of course, one needs to catch a connecting flight … which we did.

We landed in Port Vila at about the time our connection to Espiritu Santo Island was due to depart. The staff on the plane were great and informed us that we should make our way to the front door of the plane to enable a speedy bolt down the stairs, into the terminal and through immigration. With gusto and a great sense of importance we pulled the “sorry, have a connecting flight” card and managed to do as instructed, making it out of the plane, into the hot and humid tropical air, racing our way into and then through immigration. Everything was going well until we made it to the baggage carousel. Ground staff helpfully informed us that our bags would arrive on the carousel like everyone else’s and we would have to grab and run them over to the domestic terminal (domestic terminal = the shed next to this one) where we would check them in. This seemed to undercut the whole rush-rush process a little but we played along.

In the end, only one of our bags ended up doing the carousel Tango, and the rest were … well who knows? During our wait, we befriended an Australian couple that moved to Santo Island and with a nonchalance that seems to accompany island living they more or less said that our bags, might, perhaps, possibly have already been looked after, or even might not have arrived in the first place. Such emphatic confidence wasn’t quite enough to assuage our concerns, but as it turns out we needn’t have worried. So there were four of us. That nominally means four bags, right? With only one on the carousel we were tempted to wait for the rest until another helpful member of ground staff told us that we were needed in the domestic terminal in a hurry as our plane was waiting. Our bags, we were reassured, had all been looked after. When quizzed about the one bag that made it onto the carousel he looked momentarily stricken and then after a brief pause … shrugged. So many of life’s dilemmas can be solved with a shrug, no? At any rate, three out of four bags is pretty good, right? Nonetheless we were to follow him and, well, hustle.

The ground staff rushed us through customs. Well “rush” might not be the right word. We were walked though customs and all four of us were told to drop our forms in the hands of the already occupied customs people and continue walking without delay. This we did and without a backward glance followed on the heels of our guide thereby neatly bypassing the entire customs process. Not bad.

We ambled (remembering that we were now in the South Pacific islands where even a rush seems more relaxed) across to domestic only to be greeted be closed doors and vacant check in booths. Our guide changed hats, turned on the lights and completed the rest of our check in. With airport tax paid the only problem was now to get out into our plane. Locked departure doors are never a good sign when one has been told to hurry. Still thinking that we were holding up the departure of our connection we attempted to open the doors only to be greeted with laughter from behinds us. As we turned around we saw a few locals having a good belly laugh at our failed attempts to flee and also saw the captain of the plane, whose first words were “what are you doing? We haven’t boarded yet!”. Ah. Time to sit down.

When boarding finally happened we saw The Plane. We had head whispers of the Chinese Plane and now were greeted with its full splendour. Let’s just say that it was a plane without frills. To be fair it seemed like it had all the things a plane should have (like engines, wheels, a cabin and thankfully two unworried looking pilots), but it was more akin to an old bus than a plane. Still, it managed to get off the ground, stay off the ground and fly without too much trouble. It also got us there in one piece and after about one hour of ear pounding, we disembarked, industrially deaf but finally where we wanted to be, full of excitement and pretty damn happy to be on holidays. In the spirit of a happy ending, our bags made it too. We couldn’t be happier. We got to our resort filled with hope for good diving, sun and relaxation, not necessarily in that order.

USA Part 1 - Viva Las Vegas (for one night only)

The day after I arrived in the US (28 August) my brother, his girlfriend and I took off for Las Vegas. We were only staying there one night since our real mission was to get to Zion National Park, Utah and start the first serious part of the journey. Nonetheless one night in Vegas deserves at least a drive up and down the strip.

I can't confess to being fully awake at the time, or more accurately I can confess to being mostly asleep but I do have strange recollections of feeling like I was somewhere in Italy (the Venetian), then France (Paris Las Vegas), then lost in a sort of Disney-ish version of the Arthurian legend (The Excalibur) and of course lets not forget Egypt (The Luxor) where we stayed. All in all I think if it were possible to drown in Casinos then the Las Vegas strip is where one would snuff it.

Special thanks go to TED (United Airlines low cost division) for getting us to Vegas 2 hours late, but undeterred I at least thought I should walk along the strip and see a few places up close and impersonal. Check out the pics of the Luxor, Excalibur and the MGM Grand. See if you can figure out which is which ...

It's a good thing that Vegas never sleeps since we ended up checking in to our hotel at about 2am and shortly after dumping my bags in my room it was time to stroll down the strip in the balmy evening air. By about 3am I had managed to exhaust my tolerance for late night photography and decided to call it a night. The really exciting part of the trip was yet to come.

Dear Diary - It's 08:00 and I'm knackered, but it's time to get going for Zion National Park. Goodbye, we're Leaving Las Vegas.

Zion is only about three hours drive from Las Vegas and so we took off, with high hopes that the coming days would yield great chances to wear out our cameras. As you'll see in the next instalment, we were not disappointed at all.

The Opening Chapter

Welcome to my blog! Rather than clog up your inbox with countless heavyweight emails carrying numerous attached pictures I thought it best to switch to the more inbox-friendly method of updates: the blog. Here I will attempt to provide some kind of an illustrated chronicle of my adventures and the more interesting parts of whatever is going on. I leave it up to you to see if it's worth coming back ...