Monday 13th July Espiritu Santo
This proved to be a very quiet day to make the crossing to
Espiritu Santo Island with the motor running for most of the trip. As usual we
had the fishing lines out but nothing…again. This is becoming very frustrating
but fairly typical at present with no fresh fish available to buy in the
supermarkets and only a few parrot fish in eskies at the local markets which we
avoid as they looked fairly old.
Good beef however is plentiful and about half the price we
pay in Australia, and the veges are excellent and very cheap. Santo was spared
by the cyclone so bananas are back on the menu! I overindulged a bit on the
first lot and paid the price during the night!
Luganville is the capital of Santo and it’s basically one
long street with little shops, lots of little taxis and plenty of dust and heat
and not much more. The main anchorage is polluted and rolly with nothing going
for it.
We chose to pay for a mooring on the other side of the mile
wide channel at Aore resort on Aore Island and loved every minute of our time
here. The resort is run by an Aussie lady (Anne) and has good food, friendly
staff, a free pool and a regular ferry
service to Luganville.
As a result we decided to base ourselves here while we
explored the sights of Santo.
Tuesday 14th July
Today we spent some time enjoying the resort and planning a
full day touring Santo. One of John Poynters friends brings diving groups here
every year and stays at this resort. He is well known and liked and the staff
couldn’t do enough for us.
Wednesday 15th July
The “must do” points of interest include the Million Dollar
Point dive, Champagne Beach and Blue Hole swim, so we had booked a driver
(Stephen) and his mini bus for the day to take us around the sights. I also
wanted to check out a small anchorage at Oyster Bay before we took the boat up
the East Coast. Million Dollar Point is an underwater graveyard of equipment
which the Americans dumped at the end of WW11 and consists of trucks,
bulldozers, field guns, truckloads of Coca Cola, you name it and you can see it
laying in 10 metres of water. A very interesting snorkelling spot.
The rest of the day went quickly as we played the tourist
for a day. We finished this very pleasant day with a farewell dinner at the
resort for our visiting crew.
Thursday 16th July
A leisurely morning including a walk to find some WW11
bunkers then a beach walk to check out the beach houses built by Aussie and NZ
expats who spend their winters in Vanuatu. After lunch we saw our visitors off
then did some shopping.
The resort put on a great night this evening with people
from the Banks Group of islands providing the entertainment with a Bamboo band
and women making “water music” by slapping the seawater in unison. A pity the
crew missed this.
Friday 17th July
Chores day- spent most of the day making water and a few
other boat maintenance jobs.
Saturday 18th July
A change of scene was in order so we motored 8
miles to the Southern side of Aore Is and picked up another mooring off Ratua
Island resort. We had heard of a “blue hole” on the adjoining island of Malo so
we took the dinghy across the channel and up the little river which eventually
led us to this very secluded spot. The river became a fast flowing creek in
spots and was just wider than the dinghy in places which made for a lot of fun
on the return journey as we sped downstream with the current trying not to get
snagged by the overhanging branches. After a late lunch we wandered around this
old style Indonesian resort where most of the 200 year old bungalows had been
transported from Bali!
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