Blong!

I may not have expressed my appreciation for Port Villa as much as I would have liked in the last in my last entry. Time on the laptop is limited by power usage and internet time/availability is usually spotty at best. However, Port Villa is great town. The French food at Au Peche’ Mignon kept us well for both breakfast and lunch a few days with fresh croissants, salads, and BLTs. We also found a great little Japanese place up on the hill called Piha and some Chinese food that hit the spot at Harbor View. The Market had the best produce/fruit to date and stocking up was easy at the SuperMarche’.

Lastly, certainly not least, Port Villa taught me the importance of moderation. Kava is not a fast moving drink so if you don’t feel it right away, give it a minute… especially if the nakamal bartender asks if you are sure you want another shell. Fred and I both are now much more savvy kava drinkers having spent 24 hours in a haze, stomach discomfort, and me heaving off the side of the boat. Apparently, kava can be very enjoyable as long as you don’t disregard the warnings/snickers of others.

Looking forward to the most exciting diving that Vanuatu has to offer, after about a week, we set out for Luganville. Instead of sailing directly to Espiritu Santo Island, we motored through the night up to a small island off of Malekula. We came up to an anchorage on a supposedly uninhabited island to find it actually inhabited. Tom, a man from the small village, waved us into a mooring ball with much vigor. He then hopped in his dugout canoe and came out to the boat. He charged us 1500 vatu ($15) to sit on the mooring for 5 hours and then shamelessly launched into his juicing mode (how much can I squeeze out of these yachties??). Tom said and I quote, “Do you want to donate to my children’s schooling? All the yachties do. I won’t tell you how much to give since it is a donation, but there are 4 people on your boat…” He then proceed to try and pimp his son out to us for island tours, snorkeling, and anything else we may want. Tom even went back to shore, got his son, and brought him back out to the boat. That didn’t work so he returned a 3rd time with perfume that looked Debbie Gibson’s Electric Youth and tried to tell Fred that he thought I needed it.

Dear Tom: I may not smell like a botanical garden at the moment. In fact, my legs are hairy, I have sweat stains on my shirt which I am wearing for the 3 day in a row, and I may or may not have brushed my teeth this morning (I can’t remember), but thank you telling my boyfriend that I do in fact stink. By the way, he smells worse than I do and you, my dear Tom, smell worse than all 4 people on my boat plus the toilet when its clogged. I suggest you find a new sales tactic and maybe test out that Electric Youth on yourself. Love, Ashley.

Tom proceeded to get on the coconut telephone system and call all his friends. No less than 6 or 7 other boats came over to sell us things. We were in a full-court press, but managed not to be suckered…again.

After a swim, a nap, and some lunch, we made our way back to the open ocean continuing on the way to Luganville. With the wind coming at us head on, we motored along the eastern side of Malekula watching the sun set. A pod of dolphins joined us for a bit at the bow and then did flips in the distances as we left them behind.
A little later Ambrym Island came into few to the East. We watched both Mt. Benbow and Mt. Marum putting on the most impressive show of fireworks I have ever seen. We watched them all night as we passed, even from more than 20 miles away we could still see the red glow. I really can’t express how incredible the sight of lava flying in the air and red glow were, even from the boat.

The next morning, after a rainy, windless night, we reached Luganville on the Southeastern side of Espiritu Santo. We anchored off of the Beachfront Resort and were greeted by the local dugong! In Florida, this friendly creature is known as a manatee. We haven’t seen him since, but we keep looking and praying that we don’t run into him in the dinghy on the way to shore.
Dave Cross runs the Beachfront and is a wealth of knowledge regarding Santo and Vanuatu. An environmentally conscience gentleman, he also recycles and encourages cruisers to bring in their trash and separate their aluminum and glass. He takes care of the rest!

Luganville is little a more wild West than Port Villa, but a nice town still. The shops are mostly Chinese and though there is some French influence, the language and many other things have a definitive American ring. Luganville was an active place during WWII for many America troops. The SS Coolidge, an American luxury liner that carried troops to Vanuatu is sitting at the bottom of Segond Channel as well as tons of heavy machinery used during the war.

Fred and I spent an afternoon at the local hospital. I have been having headaches that just don’t quit. We decided it better to get checked out here before heading to the Solomon’s- we aren’t expecting much medical advancement up there… I’m not actually sure that I saw a certified doctor, but an Asian woman in acid wash jeans and bright yellow high heels swore I had malaria. Imagine my excitement. After a blood test, at which I had to insist on seeing a new needle being taken out of the packaging after seeing a blood spattered stack of paper on the desk, I was relieved to know that malaria was out. In the “doctor’s” mind, malaria would be the only reason for a headache. She then prescribed me a healthy dose of painkillers and hooked us up with enough malaria tablets for the 4 of us for another month – all to the tune of 3000vatu ($30). Tank yu tumas!

The diving in Luganville is off the hook! The Coolidge is said to be the best wreck dive in the world. The ship was hit a Japanese mine while trying to escape a Japanese submarine in the Segond Channel while trying to enter Luganville during WWII. The ship was close to shore so they decided to beach the liner. The troops were instructed to leave all of their belongings on the boat and go ashore with the intention of collecting all of their belongings the following day under safer conditions. Unfortunately for them, the bottom is a steep decline into 70m (230ft) of water and the boat slide backwards down the slope during the night. Currently, the ship rests on its starboard side with the bow around 20m, the stern at 67m, and every article of equipment, furniture, clothing, etc. still on the wreck.

We found Santo Island Dive & Fishing to do our diving from Dave Cross’ recommendation. They are the only outfit in town with an actual dive boat. All others go from a beach entry. The guys from SIDF even picked us up from our boat every morning. David, Aiden, Donald, and Matthew run the dives with Malcolm running the show. The Godspede as a whole cannot say enough about the service, professionalism, friendliness, and all-round good time we had with these guys! In 4 days of diving, they took us from the bow through the inside of the Coolidge, to “The Lady,” a porcelain relief sculpture mounted on a wall in the ship, to the pool and finally to 60m at the stern to see the rudder and name of the vessel. Somewhere around 50m I felt the nitrogen narcosis. I know that I am not supposed to be stoked about this, but I totally was. It took all my restraint to not to through up a little “rock on” sign to the group.

Anyway, the guys took us to Million Dollar Point as well. This sight is not far from the Coolidge and is the area where the US dumped millions of dollars of heavy machinery after WWII. The US military made deals with large corporations such as Caterpillar to sell the military equipment at 10% over cost on the premise that the equipment not return to the US after the war. The reason for this, according to Caterpillar and the like was not flood the US market and interrupt the chain of supply and demand for their businesses. When the war was over the US offered Great Britain and France the opportunity to buy the equipment at $.08 on the dollar. When no one bit, the US decided to dump off into the sea at what is now called Million Dollar Point. Naturally, if I can’t have it, no one can. Today, there is an unbelievable mound of discarded cranes, tanks, bulldozers, jeeps, and many other items for the avid diver to see.

Rounding out our diving experience, we also dove on Tutuba Reef, Palikula Reef, and one other that I missed due to my headache. Tutuba and Palikula Reefs are incredible! No dead coral in sight, they both offer swim throughs, caves, bommies, and seemingly endless reef. Large fish and sea life are prone to both areas. We saw turtles, barracudas, sharks, Bumphead Parrotfish, and large squid. On both reef dives we also experienced earthquakes! Both were small and Vanuatu is quite accustomed to earthquakes all the time, but it can be shocking to the unassuming diver. Post dives, the guys met us at Nemo’s Nakamal for shells (Fred and I behaved). We shared music and gave each guy a pair of Smith glasses for being awesome!

Finding a weather window to head North to the Solomon Islands has become difficult. Instead of departing on Wednesday we are now hoping to leave on Saturday or Sunday at best. Fortunately for us, we are in paradise!

Yesterday we rented a car and drove up the East Road of Santo to do some sight seeing. We headed North up to Port Olry and paid the 500 Vatu fee for visiting the town because, as we have discovered, nothing is free in Vanuatu. There we walked across the shallows to an uninhabitied island. Fred felt it necessary to lay down and take a little rest in the water while the rest of us wandered around the beach and the jungle.

Next we headed to Lonnoc Beach for a cold Tusker, a dip and lunch. Lonnoc is a gorgeous, super private, and large beach. The resort offers bungalows, electricity, a conference room, and a bar/restaurant. There is not a marginal view at Lonnoc!
The Lonely Planet talks about Vanuatu’s blue holes, but never really explains what they are so we were stoked to find out. Eventually, we found the dirt road leading to the elusive blue hole not far after Oyster Island. It’s always a good sign and quite comforting when there are no less than 6 grisly looking Ni-Van bushmen standing around the entrance to the road with 24” machetes to greet you! The road itself is basically 2 muddy tire tracks through super thick jungle, a cloud of mosquitos overhead, and unrecognizable jungle noises to all sides. Oh yeah, let me not forget! There was also a fee box- ples an tank yu tumas!

We drove on with low expectations. After a little way, we looked to the left and saw some shallow turquoise water with things slithering around in it and the ever present cloud of mosquitos hanging above it. I would rather have a feast of fruit bat (a Ni-Van delicacy) while completely seasick and hallucinating on malaria pills than go for a swim in that water!

Again, we plodded on and a little further down the path we came to the actual blue hole. This is something that I am happy to pay 500 vatu to experience! It is complete with thatched huts for changing and a thatched shelter with benches and a wooden entry/exit pier. The swimming hole is actually the blue-est blue I have ever seen and crystal clear to the bottom. It was probably 20-30 feet deep with no slithering things, just some fish and a rope swing on the other side.

Fred headed straight for the swing followed by Angie. Myself, I do not have a very good history with ye ole rope swing… I have either missed the water completely or knocked all my breath out my body trying to do a flip. Both of these things have happened more than once and though tempted to try to add what was sure to be a new bloody, broken something to my list of battle wounds, I gracefully declined. Fred cleared the limestone shallows and landed safely in the blue. Ang went next like Jane of Jungle…Take-off, strong…slipping…slipping…feet scraping across the rocks…and miraculous landing again safely in the blue. Thank goodness! After visiting the Santo hospital myself, I would not wish for any of my friends to visit.

Currently, we are waiting out the weather. It’s pouring rain and humid like a luke warm steam room. Fred is pretending to be asleep on the couch in the salon, but I know he is super stoked to go for a run with me as soon as the rain lets up! Run we must…after attempting to find a pair of shorts that fit this morning and coming up empty handed. Maybe I’ll tie a glass of wine and a meat ball to our fishing rod and dangle it in front of him…