Santo Island and the Banks and Torres groups, Vanuatu

Our arrival in Santo led us to the shores of the Aore resort, where we met up with the owners and enjoyed some wonderful meals during our stay in the Segond Channel. We commuted to and from town by dinghy, which although wet and bumpy on occasion, was a wise choice as we were away from it all still.

Santo town is spread out on one of the longest South Pacific roads in all the islands we have visited. It is a 20 minute walk from one end of town to the other. The Quonset huts left over from the war are currently in use as everything and anything from movie houses to restaurants to motor mechanic shops. The history and stories of the American forces who passed through this beautiful paradise are etched into everything that is Santo. It is a WW2 fanatics dream come true to be immersed in the culture and historical significance of Santo and we thoroughly enjoyed it ourselves.

We arranged a tour bus with a guide to drive us around the South Eastern end of the island, which is were most of the troops were stationed and all of the action took place. We stopped in on downed B-17's and visited Million dollar point and parked under the Banyan trees which now grow through he foundations of the military hospital which once graced these fields and still we only touched on the tip of the iceberg.

Million dollar point in itself is an amazing sight. Rusted metal parts of every conceivable machine can be found in this amazing display of rust on coral. In fact there is so much metal there and it is so intimately attached to the coral now that it is hard to tell the difference between coral and rust? We scourged through the pickings and found three in tact coke bottles with date stamps too. What a find.

Plane wrecks are scattered throughout the primary forests all over the island. In fact the people had reported finding the wreckage of a MIA pilot and his skeleton to go along with it. This is now 60 years on and still the locals bump into new discoveries as the years trickle by. The vegetation is very dense and it is no wonder these war secrets lay hidden for so long.

We did a lot of diving on the President Coolidge and enjoyed the professionalism of the crew from Allen Power Diving.

Between sight seeing and diving we had to re-provision again and we decided to pick up more diesel. These chores were undertaken with the expected amount of organised chaos. We were unfortunate enough to suffer a small mishap during the refueling procedure whereby our windlass ceased to operate and we were anchored in a rather poor position with lots of swell and chop blowing in from the east. With the aid of a German, an American and a Australian, together with a slapstick workshop and some fancy repairs on our damaged windlass part we were up and running again.

We moved up to the deserted Banks and Torres group and enjoyed landing a barracuda, which we released, and a wahoo, which we absolutely love, on the way up there. We stopped in at the administration capital of that part of the world and then headed on up to our final Vanuatu anchorage of Waterfall bay. This waterfall was the biggest and best we have seen on our adventures and with the heavy rain which had come down prior to our arrival we were treated to a spectacle indeed. We enjoyed meeting all the people of this remote area and would dearly love to return some day.

We hosted a small party and invited Nyathi and Amandla Star; interestingly both South African built and named yachts! Now they are American and British respectively. They were great friends and we had a wonderful night on board with the fresh Wahoo that Chris had landed on Amandla Star just that day! It was fabulous. Matt and Brad from Nyathi along with Shirene from Amandla Star and Dylan went night diving and with the full moon and the clarity of the water we could turn off our underwater torches and still enjoy the underwater world. We were treated to a special sighting of a humungous grouper that perched himself happily on the sand and I guess enjoyed the limelight. After checking him out we left him alone so as he could get some sleep.

Our departure came shortly after the day of the party and we said fond farewells to the Ni-Vanuatu and there fine country. We were now looking over the horizon for a peak at the Solomon Islands.