You would think that I would have all the time in the world to write a couple of pages for the blog each week but somehow time gets away from me. It seems there is always something to do either on the boat or in the places we stop at and while I am sailing it has not been conducive to writing. There is also the schedule imperative (i.e. Darwin by mid August) which drives me to continually move on to the next place. Probably wasting good sightseeing opportunities but this is the route I have chosen for the time being.
So in the last blog post I had just arrived in
Port Villa. I ended up staying about three days and spent them having a brief look
around the town and getting the usual chores out of the way i.e. laundry, re
stocking with fresh food and other requirements, filling up with gas, chasing
down elusive parts and consumables and catching up with boat admin. Also have been manually filling up with water
when we can. I have a watermaker onboard
but I mothballed it in NZ and so far have not seen the necessity of re
commissioning the unit. The issue is
that once running I need to run the unit every two or three days to keep the membrane in
good health but the system uses quite a bit of power so its easier just now to
leave it mothballed. So far we have been
able to access water as and when required and just use 20litre jerry cans to fill
up the boats tanks. There's a bit of labour involved but that’s just good
exercise for me.
Port Villa is an interesting place but nothing
particularly outstanding about it apart from the setting around the bay which
forms a natural harbour. I guess most
tourists fly into Port Villa and then are transported to resorts around the
island. I did not see too much apart
from the centre which consists of a main thoroughfare lined with shops and
businesses. There was a really bad
earthquake here in Dec 2024 which caused a lot of damage and this followed earlier cyclones and earthquakes which had hit in the last 20 plus years and so there is a lot of reconstruction work going on. I did make a couple of trips further afield
chasing parts and utilized the local minibuses.
Once you know the systems its great – you can get anywhere for 150Vatu
($1.50) and the locals are really friendly and like to chat.
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| Port Villa main food market |
The last night in Port Villa I had a beer and dinner with Peter my Bulgarian crew in the yacht club right on the edge of the harbour. We left Port Villa around midday on the 28th June after taking on some fuel as am unsure where the next opportunity to do this will be. .The next main destination was a place called Lugganville on the island of Espritu Santo the biggest in the Vanuatu archipelago about 160NM to the north. We first headed to the north of Efate Island and overnighted in a nice protected bay called Port Havannah. Then the next day pushed on to the north of the next island called Epi. We anchored in Lamen Bay. i had chosen this place as there were reputedly some dugong here. Spent the night here and the next day dugong spotting but only managed to see a massive tail as one dived. That evening we commenced the final leg of the passage to Lugganville which was 100NM. It took slightly longer than anticipated due to the weather but by 4;30pm on the 1st of July we were secure on a mooring on the opposite side of the channel from Lugganville.
Lugganville is the main town on the island of
Espiritu Santo which is the biggest of the Vanuatu islands. It is on the south side of the island and
somewhat protected by a couple of offlying islands to its south which form a wide sound. The problem is that when the weather gets up
the fetch across the sound between Lugganville and the islands is long enough
to make anchoring on the Lugganville side uncomfortable. Therefore I opted to take a mooring off one
of the islands, Aore, across from Lugganville to provide a calmer anchorage. The moorings were just off a place called the
Aore Adventure Sports and Lodge a small dive operation run by an Australian
couple. I also wanted to do a couple of
dives so this was perfect. Just next door
to the dive place was another resort with accommodation.
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| Aore Moorings |
The first day after arriving I went ashore and spoke with Paul White who runs the dive operation and made plans to dive the following day. Then it was off into town for a look around. The distance to town was too long for the Wee Otter so we used a local “banana boat to ferry us over. These boats are essentially open 20ft fiberglass vessels with an outboard and are everywhere and used like taxi’s all over Vanuatu carrying out local trips and longer inter island passages.
Lugganville town was pretty busy but comprises
one main road running along the coast lined with shops and businesses. Down one end is a big market selling fresh
vegetables and fruit. On the outskirts there are a couple of resorts/hotels
catering to tourists – a lot of whom come from the Eastern states of Australia.
There are ATM’s and a couple of internet cafes and then lots of shops selling
bits and pieces of everything mostly run by the Chinese. There was one “western “ supermarket but you
could find most of what you needed in the other shops and the market. The town looks run down with not much
investment going on. Its very dusty and
when it rains there is mud everywhere. A
steady stream of traffic trundles down the main street all day. I had a look around , bought some provisions
and then headed back to the boat.
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| Lugganville Main Street |
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| Julianno - our banana boat driver |
Next day was a 7;00am start. I joined Paul, a couple of his divemasters and five other divers onboard the dive boat. We headed out across the sound to a wreck called the President Coolidge. The President Coolidge was a 650ft cruise liner being used as a troop transport ship during the second world war. It was coming in to Lugganville when it struck a mine. The captain rammed the vessel into shore which allowed all 5,000 plus personnel to abandon the ship safely. However the seabed topography was such that it the vessel eventually slid backwards down a steep slope and came to rest in 30m to 70m of water lying on her port side. The dive site is pretty famous.
We moored over the bow of the
vessel and descended onto the vessel side.
The vis was tremendous and you could clearly make out the sunken
vessel. Due to the size of the wreck we
only really looked around the bow area.
The dive was spectacular – the whole wreck is covered in coulorful coral
with sea life all around you. You can see
the remnants of army vehicles which were being carried in the vessel holds, ordinance
from small arms to gun emplacements on deck and different rooms on the vessel.
We ended up doing two dives on the wreck – both
absolutely stunning. I had not dived for
many years. I kind of lost the
enthusiasm for it a while ago but when opportunities like this are presented it
is really worthwhile.
The next day, Friday, I had booked to visit the Millennium Cave. This was a bit of a adventure hike. As it turned out it got delayed due to island admin issues but luckily on the following day I was picked up by the trek organisers and along with eight others transported about 45kms into the interior. I had read about this trip so kind of knew what was coming but even so it was a bit of an ordeal. The first leg involved a ride up to the trailhead. This was in a twin cab ute – so OK for the four in the cab but the rest had to stick it out on boards laid across the tray and open to the weather. Luckily I was in the cab. It was about a 75min drive to to the trailhead. The distance is not that far but out of Lugganville the roads were atrocious and the last 10Km was just a muddy rutted track. Upon reaching the end of the road we disembarked and then walked to the village of Vunaspef. The villagers here are the traditional owners of the Millennium cave. We were kitted out with buoyancy vests and then the real trek started.
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| Vunaspef Village |
For the next two hours we traversed very slippery muddy tracks through the forests. Where the terrain got steep rickety wooden ladder type constructions had been laid to help the climbing and descending. There was no avoiding the mud and it reminded me of the Kokoda track. After two hrs we stopped for a brief rest where the guides painted our faces with red clay paste to ensure a safe passage through the cave. Another five minutes took us to the opening of the cave which from a distance is unremarkable but as you get closer it becomes very impressive. We descended into the darkness and were each provided with torches. The cave is huge and has a river running through it. Slowly we left the entrance and proceeded into the darkness wading through the river, clambering over boulders covered in bat shit.
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| Safe Passage Guarantee |
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| Cave Entrance |
The cave is amazing – its quite narrow but very tall. There are crazy rock formations soaring up to the roof which occasionally has collapsed allowing a glimpse of light through the screening forest. Lots of stalactites and stalagmites line the walls. A large colony of bats and swallows inhabits the cave and these flit about constantly. The traverse of the cave was quite slow due to the wading and scrambling required and went on for about another hour and was probably about 1km long. Eventually we came to the end of the cave where the river joined another river flowing through the forest. At the mouth of the cave the water deepened and we had to wade neck deep through the water. We emerged from the cave and took a lunch break at the side of the river,
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| Inside the cave |
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| The Cave Exit |
After lunch it was canyoning. We clambered over boulders and dropped into the river and swam/floated/waded/ clambered downstream through a series of narrow gorges with sheer rock sides covered with jungle. After about an hour to two hours of this we came out to another muddy slippery track and walked this for about an hour back to the starting point at Vunaspef. We were give some tea/coffee/fruit in a hut and then walked back to the waiting transport at and driven back into town.
Awesome
day out.
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| Canyoning |
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| Canyoning |
The following day (Sunday 6th July) I left Lugganville and started the passage to Sola on the island of Ndendo where I would check out from Vanuatu and begin the journey to the Solomon Islands.
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