Luganville on the south coast of Espiritu Santo is the 2nd largest town in Vanuatu (Port Vila is the largest). The anchorage off Luganville is somewhat exposed most of the time, holding isn’t great and there isn’t a great place to leave your dinghy on shore. As an alternative to anchoring there, we chose to pick-up a mooring in front of the Aore Resort on Aore Island, directly across the channel, where we were in the lee of the island, had access to the resort restaurant and pool, and could take their ferry across the channel to Luganville. As I explained in an earlier post our first 4 days there were spent dealing with the coolant leak on the genset, in an energy conservation mode. Having the amenities of the resort available made it much easier during this period of time!

We made a decision not to try going to any of the islands further north in Vanuatu due to the impacts of the ash cloud from the eruptions of the volcano on Ambae Island. We saw and heard too many horror stories of the impact of the acid from the ash on the boats paint and stainless steel to subject the boat (and ourselves) to that hazard. As an alternative, we decided to take several land tours of Santo Island.

The history here is very interesting and explains a lot about why the Vanuatu people relate to the USA. The US Navy choose the natural harbor between Santo and Aore as their 2nd largest base of operations (after Pearl Harbor) during WWII. In a matter of months they constructed a town, which is today Luganville, built 5 airfields and piers for servicing the ships. The before and after pictures of the area are amazing. If you know where to look (or take a tour as we did), you can still see some of this infrastructure today. At the end of the war when the US decommissioned the area, the French and English (who together ruled Vanuatu) declined to buy the equipment and the US could not bring it back (an interesting story in itself), so they dumped it all off the pier at what is now known as Million Dollar Point. You can walk the beach, snorkel or dive the area in calm conditions and see the remains of this equipment. Off the shore you can also see the resting place of the USS Coolidge, a US ship that was sunk by US mines because she entered the harbor through the wrong pass. Again, this is an amazing story from the war here in the South Pacific. A group is currently working to establish a South Pacific WWII Museum here in Luganville. If you are interested and/or would like to support their efforts you can sign up for their newsletter at info@southpacificwwiimuseum.com.

In addition to seeing and hearing about all the WWII related sites, we took the one really nice highway north up the east coast of Santo to Port Orly. This highway was funded by the US as a thank you to the people of Vanuatu for letting the US use their islands during WWII. The highway was completed and was dedicated during President Obama’s tenure, so he is a very popular person in Vanuatu! Friends from SV La Rochelle accompanied us and we had a great time walking beaches, snorkeling and visiting one of several freshwater “Blue Holes”. Once again, we were fortunate to have a great tour guide, who was very knowledgeable of the history of the area, spoke good English, and could cook a great BBQ lunch!

The “must do” tour listed when in Santo is the Millenium Cave Tour. This is (appropriately so) referred to as an “adventure tour”. It is advertised as four parts to it, specifically 1) trekking to two different villages (mostly flat walks), 2) Painting our faces (to show respect for the cave) and going through the cave (walking in water - some times waist deep), 3) bouldering, and 4) floating (in life jackets - no rafts) down a river. Actually there is a fifth part which is climbing down from the villages to the cave level, and a sixth part which is climbing back up (more vertical than coming down) to the villages. It is guided and the guide is there to assist you along the way. We were fortunate to have our own personal guide for just the two of us. It is listed as a nominal 5-6 hr experience. Cindy went back and forth as to whether she was up for taking on this “adventure tour”. Finally she decided she would do it. Spoiler Alert - she made it, but she says she would not have done it knowing what she does now. We were very late getting back to Luganville, missing the last ferry and had to arrange for special transportation back to Aore Island. The terrain was a little too intimidating for her to be able to enjoy the views and experience. It certainly is everything that they advertise it as being and I had a great time. There are no real bail-out points - once you start going down to the cave level, you are committed and will have to make the climb back up. If you haven’t already seen Cindy’s pictures from this adventure, go to her Five Minutes from Panic Facebook page and take a look.

Three days later, a massage, and a large bruise on her backside she was “recovered” from the adventure with a stern warning to me not to let her do something like that again!