Vanuatu Santo

ESPIRITO SANTO

Oct 5, 2005
We sailed to Luganville and chose to pick up a mooring at Aeore Resort on the island across from Town. The resort caters to yachties with a restaurant, laundry services, internet and showers. After dropping off laundry we took the water taxi across the bay to check in at Luganville.

Oct 6, 2005
Luganville

Luganville is Vanuatu's second largest centre and the northern capital. Set among many modern conveniences are the remnants of the US occupation in World War II. After a visit to customs and immigration to renew our Visas, we walked around the town, visited the rather disappointing market, and checked out the stores which all seemed to carry the same assortment of everything from hardware to clothes to groceries and looked much like discount stores. We had some ice cream at a restaurant while the stores all closed from 12 to 2 for lunch.

Oct 7, 2005

Million Dollar Point
Along with Endless, we sailed Freefall to Million Dollar Point where Donna, Emma, Axel and Gord would dive and I would snorkel. Million Dollar Point is an historic point where US forces dumped hundreds of tonnes of military equipment at the close of the war, everything from bulldozers and trucks to bottles of coca-cola. It was really amazing to see the enormous pile of junk that looked like dinky toys, many still fully intact, haphazardly balanced in an endless stack of rubble..

Oct 8, 2005
SS President Coolidge Dive

Early in the morn, Gord, Donna, Axel and Emma left with a dive company to see the famous SS President Coolidge, a 22,000 tonne luxury liner converted to a US troop carrier sunk during World War II. In 1942, after hitting US laid mines, it sunk in the channel making it the world's largest accessible wreck. Gord reportedly kissed "the Lady" (who resembles Queen Victoria riding the statue of a horse) in the ballroom at 130 feet down. They had 2 decompression dives, which turned out to be great experiences.

Oct 9
We headed back into town to get last minute items before leaving Luganville. Gord bought a new mask to replace the one he somehow lost on the dive the day before.

Oct 11
PETERSON BAY

We arrived at Peterson Bay but found the tricky entrance into the inner lagoon too shallow for our 8 ft draft so we were forced to drop the hook outside the flat protected bay.

The Blue Hole

We were immediately welcomed by Gumbo YaYa (Kurt), Spiritus Invictus (Sven) and Dikenja (Rick). We all took our dinghies up the river to the Blue Hole where we had a refreshing swim.

The sights along the river were amazing, with water plants floating past and dense foliage, vine covered branches hanging over the water as we meandered the mile or so down the river. It was nice to have a visit with Nancy and Kurt on Gumbo YaYa and get caught up with news of their travels.

Oct 12 We had such a horrid rolly night with no sleep at Peterson Bay we opted to move the boat to a more peaceful anchorage. Before we left though, we explored Peterson Bay by dinghy, encountering a dugong, but not much of interest in the way of snorkeling. We paid 375 vatu to take the dinghy up the Northern River to another Blue Hole. This river was quite different from the southern one and amazingly clear. You could see into the water like it wasn't even there! We swam and I washed my hair in the cool fresh water of the blue hole at the end of the river.

Palekulo Bay
We returned to Ascension, still bobbing in the swell and pulled up the anchor to motor the 10 miles back toward Luganville and anchored in a peaceful bay call Palekulo Bay.

We spent a relaxing day touring around the bay in the dinghy. The following morning, Endless joined us in the anchorage.

Although it was a long walk to Luganville and it was impossible to get a taxi from the isolated anchorage, we set out on foot, hoping to hitch a ride. Gord carrying a propane tank to be filled and Marv packing a propane tank and 2 jerry jugs for fuel, we headed down the dirt road. Some locals along the way showed us the shorter route to take but after several miles, it was evident that we were on the path less traveled (ie NO ONE) and there were no ride opportunities. It was very very hot and the road not much more than a dirt track and we walked for many miles through the bush, seeing no signs of life.

Finally, almost to town, we encountered a lady sitting in the shade of a dilapidated shelter and so we stopped to talk. Other villagers joined us and we soon found out that this was a bus stop. Great! We plunked ourselves down, very happy not to be walking down the dusty road in the heat any longer. After a considerable length of time a taxi drove by and we all waved him down. He was a really friendly local man who took us to the propane depot and then on to town.

We took care of the check-out procedure, did some provisioning and a final non-productive visit to the still absentee doctor (for chest X-rays). When it came time to hail another taxi, somehow we managed to get the very same driver again.

Oct 14, 2005

At first light, we headed out the pass, on our way to New Caledonia, our course set for the Loyalty Islands.

PHOTOS OF VANUATU

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