Tropical Day

Sunday 12th July 2015
A much sunnier day today so we took a bus, then a small ferry to Hideaway Island.

Hideaway Island is the small island in the bay

The beach is covered with coral and much easier to get in with reef shoes (or for Duncan his trusty crocs) rather than flippers. The beach goes down very steeply so you need only go a step or two into the water before flopping in and the fish were right there - just going about their day to day life as we snorkelled above. Big fish, little fish, black, white, lime and pink, blue and yellow, and just plain grey. 

Coming into Hideaway

We had a break on the beach, but the sun was very burny, so we moved under the palms. Then we had another snorkel. My highlight was a bright blue starfish, about the size of a dinnerplate.

We had lunch at the kiosk, then got the ferry and bus back to Nasama for a nap before going to Cafe du Village right on the waterfront in Port Vila. It was very peaceful and serene with Venus and Jupiter clearly visible. Small boats plied across the harbour with no lights on, just the put-put of their motors - a great setting for a murder mystery!

Monday 13th July 2015

Our last day - warm and cloudy. The flight to the volcano never eventuated, so we think we will just relax at the resort today.  But I persuade Duncan a walk over the rock pools at low tide would be interesting as we have seen the locals out foraging every low tide.

 There were lots of huge black slugs. Suely the people weren't going to eat them?

 More slugs and to the left an octopus  scuttles away.

 Long multipede worms rhythmically move through the rock pools

A very small version of the bright blue starfish I saw out on hideaway

 One of the slugs tries to disguise itself by having sand stick all over it.

We could bear it no longer so I send Duncan scampering across the reef to see what the locals were collecting. It appeared to be some very small welklike shell with something inside. Looks like you would need heaps to make a meal out of them.

Looking back at the resort from the reef - you can see the area in front where you were able to see a few things when snorkeling.

Back to the unit for lunch and a beer.  This was Nambawan beer. You need to say that out loud so that you can see how Pidgeon english works.

Reading and catching up on the world via the cell phone were all part of the days we spent over here. We went to the resort restaurant tonight. They were extremely busy, but we still had a nice meal.

And finally we had to pack. Our pick-up was at 10am next morning, and we had a good, but cramped flight back. With extensive fast forwarding I was able to watch the end of Gone Girl. Not a very satisfactory ending though!

Vanuatu - a great place to spend a week! Not quite as sunny as we hoped and a little more expensive than we'd planned but an excellent mid-winter break.