Espiritu Santoe is the largest island in Vanuatu. It supports a population of 37,000. The only real town is Luganville, which is where we docked in the morning. During World War II, after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbour, the island was used by American naval and air forces. It became a large military supply and support base for a few years. The SS President Coolidge was a converted luxury liner carrying 5,000 troops. It hit a sea mine coming into the harbour area because nobody thought to mention that two of the three entry channels had been mined. The skipper ran the ship aground to avoid capsize or sinking and all but two hands were saved. The shipwreck is now a popular diving spot. Further up the coast is a place where the Americans dumped most of their used military and naval equipment. This is now also a scuba diving site known as Million Dollar Point. In highly fictionalised form, this island is the location of the Rodgers and Hammerstein musical, South Pacific.
Vanuatu has more freshwater blue waterholes than any other place in the world. Found hidden amongst the lush emerald rainforest, these iridescent blue holes are a direct result of Vanuatu’s unique geology. When it rains, water from the islands’ volcanic mountains flows underground into limestone caves, which corrodes the limestone and creates underground streams. Eventually, these streams resurface as freshwater springs, or what we know as the blue holes. The waters in these blue holes are incredibly clear, creating a dazzling luminescent effect that seems almost too perfect to be natural. That is what the guidebook says. We joined a group to go have a look at one.
A twenty-minute drive in a tiny minibus brought us to a bridge over a river. Here we got into canoes. Four people to a canoe with a man to paddle at the back. We did not have to do anything. Just sit there. The trip took about ten minutes. I quite enjoyed it. Floating along on clear, fresh water through dense, rich jungle. I didn’t see any birds or animals although we could hear birds. We arrived at the blue hole. A platform had been built around one side and this is where we got out. The water here is great for swimming. It is clear, clean spring water. Cool but not cold. Diane and I had brought our snorkelling gear but I think Diane was put off by the temperature of the water. I thought it was perfect and jumped straight in.
We had spotted a couple of small fish as we had come up the river. However, I was quite surprised at how much fish life there was when I started to look. Once I got away from the platform, where everyone was swimming and splashing around, there were a lot of fish. Big ones, small ones and flat ones. Underneath the overhangs and where trees were dipping into the water. Deeper down, I came across a whole big shoal of fish. No idea what any of them are. Google appears to struggle with these. It comes up with answers that do not seem confident. There are fish experts on the ship but they are hard to find during the day. Most of the fish can live in freshwater and seawater. I had a good half hour swimming around. We were all called out of the water. A short walk brought us back to the microbuses.
It was only lunchtime when we arrived at the ship. Still a few hours before we sailed. So, we got together with Philip and Susan and went to hire a taxi. We had no idea where we could go or what it would cost. A gang of taxi drivers converged on us. They were all waving sheets with pictures of potential destinations and they were all talking, loudly, at the same time. Many of the destinations were impractically far away but we eventually came up with an idea. After much discussion, we settled on a destination and a driver and a price that was less than the replacement value of a new car.
First stop was a petrol station where our driver bought fuel for the trip. We were only going a few kilometres so he only filled up with a couple of litres. On the map we had chosen a roughly circular trip with a short excursion along a spit of land. What we discovered was not a road but a very rough track. The driver very slowly and carefully made his way around all the potholes. The noise was terrible. He explained that a hubcap was loose. The reality was that the vehicle’s suspension was completely shot. We made it to the spit of land. It was private property and we could not go far. We stopped to look at some beach and I took photographs of a lad fishing. He had a weighted net which he would throw into the water and then gather back in. Back in the taxi we arrived at a large pothole full of water. Our driver did not want to tackle this. We turned round and headed back.
That was it for Vanuatu. Now we had three sea days as we headed for Papua New Guinea.