We wanted to spend some time on a cool island and decided to go to Vanuatu, a country in the South Pacific. Vanuatu is a Y-shaped chain of islands between Australia and Fiji. Apart from having great diving spots it also won the title of the happiest country in the world in 2007. After a spending some time here, we totally understand the reasons.
Already in the plane we got the feeling that we made the right choice. Not only did we get great food and several drinks, but also the staff was friendly and the returning locals were talking and laughing loudly, showing the award winning happiness.
The average temperature in March is 26C and as soon as you step out the plane you start to enjoy the warm humidity. Vanuatu is not Asia and the price level is rather high, similar to holiday destinations in Spain or Italy. Since everybody is super friendly and the service is great, you just do not mind spending the money in this tropical surrounding. Apart from knowing that there are good diving spots we did not know much about Vanuatu. We tried to get some information about the dangers and possible hassles from the EDA page (Swiss external affairs office) but Vanuatu is not even properly listed. Also in the lonely planed we did not find that particular section.
Soon we found out why; there are practically no typical traveller’s dangers. It might help that the communities are so small that everybody would know that something happened to you and who did it. Also the cities are too small to have dangerous areas and bargaining is considered rude.
We landed in Port Villa, the capital and spent the first days walking around the city and testing the deck chairs at our hotel pool. After this relaxing start we took a plane to Espirito Santo, the biggest island. There we stayed in the middle of the city, whereas city means one big strip of about 1km. All day long little taxis and buses drive along the strip, looking for customers. Every car in Luganville is either a taxi, a bus, or a truck, which often also serves as bus.
We spent our days with diving, sleeping, eating, reading and listing to the rain. You tend to forget how hard it can rain in tropical countries and how fast the sun can come out afterwards.
The main diving attraction in Santo is the sunken USS President Coolidge; A former luxury liner that was converted to a troop carrier. In WWII the US used Vanuatu, then an English-French Condominium, as a base and some 500’000 were stationed in Santo over the war. In 1942 the USS Pres. Coolidge hit 2 US-laid mines and sank offshore. Apparently it is now the world’s largest, most intact and accessible wreck. Having such a cool wreck right in front of us we started our wreck diving specialty course after finishing our open water. Since the wreck lies between 30 and 70 meters we added a deep diving specialty course to understand, what we were actually doing under water. By diving nearly every day – there is not much else to do here – we earned our Specialty Diver diploma and are now looking forward to dive some more in Asia.
On our break day drove along the East Coast Road, there are not that many in Santo, and went to a famous beach called Champagne Beach and to a blue hole. The beach was beautiful but the coolest thing was the blue hole. It is a deep fresh water pool that is unbelievably blue. When seeing it on a picture you are convinced that this must be photoshopped.
We totally enjoyed our stay in Vanuatu and tasted South Pacific blood. We need to come back and explore
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