Champagne Bay, Espíritu Santo, Vanuatu - September 2016

This was pretty cool!

Our most notable experience on this post happened on our way up to Champagne Bay from Luganville. We were just settling in for another night grazing the buffet on the ship, contemplating a night that we would probably spend going around in circles in the South Pacific Ocean as we only had to sail about 60 kilometres to reach Champagne Bay, when our captain interrupted our food fueled revelry. We had been contacted by the search and rescue people in New Caledonia asking us if we could go to the rescue of sinking boat, the sinking boat was around around 200 kilometres to our north west but we would be the first boat that would be able to get to them. So with a frision of excitement rippling through the buffet off we steamed to the rescue…….and rescue we did, at around 1:30am we picked up the five grateful souls. This little story actually has a bit more to it, apparently one of the damp punters that we plucked out of the ocean was related to a minister in the Vanuatu government, so later in the trip when we arrived into Port Vila we had a government delegation come on board for a presentation to the captain.

The bottom route is our voyage out into the Coral Sea to pick up our guests.

Actually I’m pretty grateful to those damp sailors because without them this could of been my shortest post ever, you see I haven’t got a lot to say about Champagne Bay short of we went swimming and then we went shopping, oh yeah you’ll probably get a lot of tropical fish photos again in this post I reckon. Anyway we arrived at Champagne Bay only around 30 minutes later than planned which was a pretty good effort by the captain and crew considering last nights nocturnal adventures. Catching the first tender to shore my first objective for the day was to get a photo of the brilliant white sand that is Champagne Beach before it was over run with other dim dims off the ship. With that quickly accomplished we headed for a spot that seemed to promise some good snorkelling, unfortunately everybody else on the ship seemed to be awake to my cunning plan and our little patch of paradise soon filled up with the striped blue and white towels off the ship.

We were off the ship early and headed up to the far end of the beach to go snorkelling.

It looks like Champagne Bay has a large fresh water spring flowing into the water at this far end of the beach, I think that is probably how they coined the name Champagne Bay. The cold inversion layer of water gives the water a strange shimmering like appearance when you duck your head under, I’d experienced a similar effect at Bonegi in Honiara earlier on the trip. Not to worry as I’d worked out pretty quickly that it was just a matter of diving a little deeper and the goggles clear up and you can see clearly again. The diving at this far end of the beach was ok, the further out from the shore we went the better it became, I could see waves breaking on the edge of the reef around a kilometre out which would probably make for good snorkelling but figured that I might start a bit of a panic if I swam out there.

There is a lot of fresh water running into the ocean which creates a kind of cold inversion layer which causes the masks to fog up. The go is to dive a little deeper under the cold layer and the mask will clear itself up.

The snorkelling was pretty good down this end of the beach.

With our spot at the far end of the beach starting to get really crowded Sam and I took a bit of a stroll through the local markets. If lobsters your poison then this market is for you, there were at least 2 or 3 locals with small kitchens set up selling fresh lobster, at around $20 for a lobster it seemed like pretty good value. There were also a few locals offering tours in the market, including one guy that would take you out to the drop off where I had seen the waves breaking, by now I had another cunning plan up my sleeve though so I gave it a miss, and at $20 for an hour it would of been a fairly expensive snorkel. After dropping Sam back on the ship and having a quick lunch I jumped back on the tender to try snorkelling a likely looking spot.

About time to make our way back for awhile, if I swim any further out they may send a boat to rescue me this time!

Fresh seafood anyone....

I'll be back.

My new spot was right beside the small jetty that the tenders were using. Leaving my dry gear beside some local kids I eased my way into the water trying not to attract to much attention as I wasn’t actually sure that I was meant to be snorkelling here. Now being a fat white dim dim with fins on its a little hard to be discreet but I managed to get into the water anyway and straight away I knew that I’d done the right thing snorkelling this headland. Within thirty seconds I was swimming through large schools of fish that seemed totally unfazed by my presence, I basically now snorkelled my way around the rocky headland that separates Champagne Bay from its neighbour Lonnec Beach. This was magnificent snorkelling, it had everything, large coral bommies, huge schools of tropical fish, sea caves, green sea turtles, and any time I stopped for a bit of a rest I’d gaze upon the green tropical jungle covered headland above me. To top it all off, while Champagne Bay was crowded with punters I had this whole headland to myself.

This is the headland that I snorkelled this afternoon.

The end of the beach near the jetty made for really good snorkelling, but you need to be a fairly competent swimmer.

The Dirt.
Well Champagne Bay is basically a great swimming spot but if you want to snorkel then the end of the beach the furthest from the concrete jetty is where most of the punters go. If you can swim a bit though the snorkelling around the rocky headland near the jetty is superb, well worth the effort of getting in and out. If you happen to be there when the jetty isn’t in use then it would be just a matter or swimming past the jetty but if you are visiting on a cruise and they are running tenders then you only have a very small section of sand to get into the water. While the market the locals set up here looks like your typical South Pacific craft and clothes type market it actually has a couple of beach side bars in it and also a few locals selling freshly caught and cooked lobsters, not a bad place to hang out for awhile really.
Relevant Posts.
Luganville, Espiritu Santo, Vanuatu, 2016.
Mele Cascades, Port Vila, Vanuatu, 2013.

This was undoubtably the highlight of what had been a day of highlights!

This underwater photography is harder than it looks.

See ya.....

I think this is Nemo's cousin.

It's a pretty narrow entry and exit point if you want to snorkel the headland.

There wasn't a lot of punters left when I caught the tender back to the ship this afternoon.

It's a hard life this cruise ship caper!