Vanuatu Top Ten!

We were aiming for the island of Tanna, our other alternative was Port Vila, but the winds decided to take us north to Luganville instead! A surprise visit full of many surprises. Here's our top ten:

10) Volcano! We passed the island of Ambrym at night. It is the home of two active volcanoes and we could see the sky above the mountains glowing red from the lava!

9) US impact - Luganville was built as a major US military staging base during WWII. The main road was built wide enough for four army trucks to drive down side by side. There are quonset huts and bomber wrecks in the woods. Apparently over 200,000 Americans passed through Luganville during the war.

8) Million Dollar Point - At the end of WWII, the US was left with a surplus of construction and military equipment. It would have been very expensive to ship it all back to the states. The remaining French government didn't want to buy it, and the US didn't want to give it away, so they threw it all into the ocean. It's now a popular scuba site.

7) SS President Coolidge - this Titanic-sized steamship was converted to a troop transport ship during WWII. On its way into Luganville, it struck two US mines and sank. It is reportedly the second-best scuba dive wreck in the world.

6) Local Market - not everything in Vanuatu was cheap. However, goods in the farmer's market were. We bought grapefruits for 20 vatu each!

5) Microfinance - we witnessed a celebration for Women's Day, where groups of women are given microfinance loans to startup small businesses. This is a popular and successful development aid program throughout the world.

4) Champagne Beach - the EYE Crew has voted, and this is officially the nicest beach we have ever seen. White, powdery sand, clear blue water, and natural springs flowing through rocks at one end.

3) Access fees - land is communally owned by villages, and each village charges an access fee to any tourist sites they may own. The Blue Hole, Million Dollar Point, Champagne Beach, and Millennium Cave each required payment and permission to enter.

2) Land diving - on Pentacost Island, the locals participate in the original bungee-jumping, except with vines gathered from the woods. They pick their own vines, and the goal is to have your hair brush the ground, thus ensuring a strong yam harvest in the coming year.

1) Hair - Vanuatan women wear their hair big and round. There are reports of circumferences of four meters!

FTA

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Diving in Vanuatu!

Here on Espiritu Santo, we've met many tourists from all over the world who have come to Vanuatu for one thing- SCUBA diving. We anchored the WTP off the Beachfront Resort, where many divers stay for the duration of their trip, and spoke with people who told us stories of their diving adventures.

One group we met had 17 people, all friends from Poland, all here for diving. They had already dove at many of the popular locations around the island, including Million Dollar Point and the SS President Coolidge. Million Dollar Point is where US forces dumped a massive amount of machinery and vehicles at the end of WWII, by building a pier and simply driving the vehicles off the end (the French Government didn't want to pay for the equipment and the Americans didn't want to give it to them). The SS President Coolidge hit a land mine in 1942 and sank right off the shore. Luckily it was close enough to shore that all but a very few people were able to escape safely. Many artifacts, from Coke bottles to eyeglasses to medicine bottles, are still on the ship and make it an extremely interesting dive.

The Polish group we met was very nice, and invited us to dive with them at the Blue Hole right outside Luganville. This is a very clear, startling blue freshwater lagoon, fed by a river, which is fed by a spring. We went to the dive shop (Aquamarine; run by a very friendly Bermudian named Rehan) to get our gear rentals straightened out and met up with the group, early the morning of the dive.

After a short bus ride we arrived at the Blue Hole, donned our wetsuits, BCs, tanks, masks, and fins, and walked down the concrete stairs to enter the water. There weren't many fish, but the bottom, 15 meters down, was covered in very cool rock formations, and the water was so clear we could look up and see the trees that lined the shore. Vanuatu is a great place to SCUBA dive!

MIN

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Name This Wall-Crawler!

These little guys can be seen scurrying over walls and ceilings in many restaurants and houses. They have big round toes to help them stick on to whatever they're climbing, and move very quickly.

They like to hang out around lights, because they eat the bugs that fly around them. We hear these creatures whenever they're around, because they make loud chirping noises!

Name That Creature!

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Yu likem toktok? Mi wantem toktok Bislama.

Upon reaching the shores of Espiritu Santo we were startled to see signs that read like this:

"Yu likem tok tok?"

We learned that what looked to be a badly structured and spelled variation of English was actually the national tongue of Vanuata, called Bislama. Bislama is an English-based form of pidgin which allows people from all over the islands of Vanuatu to speak to each other. It is used for debates in Parliament and is printed on the currency. The local newspaper may have some stories written in English and others written in Bislama.

It may seem weird to speak both Bislama and English but the language fills an important niche. There are over 113 local languages spoken in the country, which is the highest concentration of different languages per person of any country in the world. Until independence in 1980, Vanuata was jointly ruled by England and France. Because of this, both French and English were spoken and taught in school. Combined with the many different versions of local languages, it is easy to see that there is a need for a relatively simple language that everyone can speak.

Just because the grammer is simple and the number of words is small doesn't make the language easy for non ni-Vans to pick up. Ni-Vans speak Bislama very rapidly to one another. Sometimes you are just barely able to follow the conversation thread but usually it is very difficult. Reading Bislama is a little easier, but much of the spelling is done phonetically so you find yourself mouthing out the words while you read along with the text.

Here are some common words and phrases we have learned in Bislama:

"toktok" - to talk to some one, talk on the phone, have a conversation.

"wanem nem blong yu?" - What's your name?

"blong" - can either mean for, belong, of, or from, depending on the context.

"ia" - here; this.

"ol" - all or plural.

"long" - big, whole, all, large or variations of along such as next to, at, to, or in.

"rum blong swim" - shower room.

"Yu ting you likim?" - Do you like?

We have had fun learning to speak and read Bislama. Even if most of the spoken bislama goes over our heads, it is fun to try and decifier the various signs we come across around town.

SWC

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Island Fuel

Greenhouse gases, carbon footprint, global warming. Sound familiar? These are just a few buzz words in the world of environmental conservation today as it relates to the burning of fossil fuels. However, in the midst of an increasing global desire for sustainable energy and cleaner fuels, we have found a glimmer of hopeful ingenuity here in Vanuatu in the form of the simple coconut!

You may recall learning about the copra industry here in the Pacific. Copra (or dried coconut meat) is exported by the islands and used to make fine oils for the skin, soaps, and other beauty products all over the world. While these are all fine uses for the dried oily raw material, we have discovered that it has also found its way into environmental conservation.

Island fuel, as it is called here in Vanuatu, is a type of bio fuel produced from the oil extracted from copra. It can be used in its pure extracted form as a substitute for diesel with very little modification, or as a diesel or kerosene fuel mix. While you may not see island fuel at your local station pump anytime soon, it certainly has a presence here in the South Pacific.

WWI

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