Million Dollar Point

Million Dollar Point is one of the strangest and most memorable snorkel sites in the Pacific. At the end of WWII, the US military had amassed enormous quantities of equipment on Espiritu Santo — vehicles, machinery, construction equipment, ammunition. Rather than sell it to the Vanuatu government at rock-bottom prices or ship it home, they drove it all off the beach into the sea. Today the seabed shelves away from the shoreline into a vast carpet of jeeps, bulldozers, trucks, tractors, and crates — all now blanketed in coral and swarming with reef fish. The site is accessible as a shallow snorkel (2–5 m over the main dump zone) or a deeper dive. Entry is from the beach and there are no facilities, so bring your own gear or rent from dive shops in town. The name comes from the estimated value of the equipment destroyed — the actual figure was closer to US$100 million in 1945 dollars.