Vanuatu, March 31, 2000
THE LADY & THE PRESIDENT
Vanuatu's first lady has been safely returned to her President. And
pioneering filmmaker, Stan Waterman, captured this historic event
on video.
It took five divers from four dive operations, complicated planning
and underwater teamwork plus many hours of collective decompression.
But on March 31 the President Coolidge shipwreck's elegant Elizabethan
ceramic sculpture "The Lady" was successfully returned to
the sunken museum. She now sits vertically at 39m on the ceiling of
the First Class Dining Saloon. After great debate and discussion about
her fate, The Lady was bolted in the dining saloon because that section
of the wreck is so stable - and because it was almost the same depth
as her original position.
"Everyone wants to see the Lady when they dive the Coolidge,
she's its strongest icon," said Aquamarine's Kevin Green, part
of both the artwork's rescue effort and the dive to reposition it.
"But we didn't want to place her too shallow because we wanted
to preserve that sense of special privilege divers feel from actually
reaching The Lady."
"She's worth the effort."
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The statue was lashed to a wooden fork-lift pallet and lift bags.
The divers, looking like a train of Royal Escorts in slo-mo, guided
it to the sea door on C-deck, into the ship's Lobby and finally through
to the First Class Dining Saloon. The dive team included Dave Cross
(Pro Dive Santo), Kevin Green (Aquamarine), Peter Payne (Bokissa Island
Resort), Tim Gilder and Christian Truter (Allan Power Dive Tours).
At that depth every minute was crucial to the project's success. The
divers carried twin-tank rigs of air, focused on relaxing to resist
narcosis and deftly co-ordinated ropes, bolts, shifters, lift bags
and torches. Their work stirred thick layers of silt inside the enclosed
space and threatened the team to abort. But the mission was accomplished
with air and visibility to spare. Hang tanks of rich-mix Nitrox between
40 and 80% sustained the divers through their slow ascents and enriched
their long contemplative, bladder-wrenching, decompression at the
famous "coral garden" above the wreck.
Also on hand was world-famous filmmaker and teaser of sharks, Stan
Waterman, who was visiting Vanuatu aboard the live-aboard NAI'A. NAI'A
normally sails with divers throughout Fiji, but was fortuitously in
Santo as part of her inaugural season of exploratory expeditions in
Vanuatu. Waterman, who will include The Lady's recovery and replacement
in his video about Vanuatu, was joined in filming by NAI'A owner Rob
Barrel, while divemaster, Cat Holloway, shot still photographs.
"I have hardly seen a more astonishing display of underwater
collaboration," said Waterman over a celebratory scotch.
"But I'm puzzled as to why Elton John has not yet written a ballad
for this formidable and voluptuous woman."
Years of gradual disintegration, largely from the barrage of thousands
of divers' bubbles, had caused other parts of the enormous vessel
to collapse. Among those isolated parts was the First Class Smoking
Room where the decorative work was originally mounted above the fireplace
in 1931 in what was then one of the largest merchant ships built in
the USA. Ten years later during World War II, the President Coolidge
was converted to carry 5000 troops and supplies through battle zones
in the Pacific. But a surprising military appreciation of beauty left
The Lady in place.
She fell from grace on Australia Day (January 26) this year, severing
her tie to the ceramic frame that had cradled her. By a stroke of
enormous good fortune, The Lady, almost one metre square in size,
hydroplaned through a doorway on the Promenade Deck and landed unscathed
in deep silt and mud outside the wreck at 54m. She was immediately
moved out of harm's way to 60m on sand and clear of the ship. From
there she was gallantly rescued and carefully brought above water
for the first time in 58 years. Maritime archaeologists advised on
preservation and protection. A sturdy aluminium frame was custom-built
for The Lady's new position. And the corner of the ceramic frame from
which The Lady was untimely ripped was salvaged and re-attached.
Although the President Coolidge sank in 1942 after hitting allied
mines off Santo. It was not until 1982 that Allan Power, the Grand
Master of diving this wreck, discovered the unusual and elegant sculpture
of a costumed woman and a unicorn.
"I have no idea why people are so fascinated by The Lady, but
they are," said Power, speaking from his home overlooking Luganville
Harbour amid some precious and meticulously preserved artifacts salvaged
during his early days exploring the wreck. The President Coolidge
is nowadays preserved under Vanuatu law (at Power's urging) from salvaging
or desecration,
"Only big Boris the grouper rivals The Lady in the popularity
stakes."
Legendary Boris weighs about 200 kg and happily swims mere centimetres
from dozens of gleeful divers to claim a free feed at the President
Coolidge's "Deco Stop". Yet, according to Power, this massive
and voracious fish has grown little if at all since he first met the
animal in 1969.
May The Lady forever be safe from Boris' mighty jaws.
