Port Vila, Efate, Vanuatu - September 2016

Port Vila, it looks like the locals got a special deal from Rays Tent City.

On our cruise around the South Pacific last September we visited a lot of ports that Sam and I had never visited before, but Port Villa wasn’t one of them. Over the years we’ve been through Port Vila a handful of times, in fact I’ve already done a blog post about a couple of visits here a few years ago where we visited the beautiful Mele Cascades. Port Vila has endured a couple of huge cyclones since our last visit and is still getting slowly back to its feet, the port area was changed from our last visit with the hill behind the wharf now appearing to be a huge quarry and the tropical trees that crown the hills that envelope the wharf now being a little lower to the ground and scrappy than they were on our last visit. The pleasing thing is that mother nature works pretty quick in these tropical humid environments so the damage was nowhere near as bad as I’d feared it might be.

The colour of the water at Port Vila always impresses me.

On this visit we decided to go on a glass bottom boat/snorkelling tour over to the nearby Iririki Island, now this island is so close to the wharf I could of easily swum over, although I don’t think the local harbour authorities would have been to enamoured with that idea. So instead of breaststroking my way across the harbour we jumped onto a glass bottom boat that was pulled in almost under the bow of the ship, once on the little boat it was a short hop across to the island. We didn’t actually go ashore on Iririki Island we just anchored slightly off shore amongst some coral and after a bit of a talk as we looked through the glass bottom of the boat we were allowed to jump in.

Now being a commercial snorkelling tour there are a lot of rules about where you could swim and where you couldn't, so I didn’t jump in with an over abundance of enthusiasm. But once in the tepid water one of the advantages of a commercial tour became obvious, they feed the fish, so suddenly we were surrounded by a seething mass of nibbling tropical fish. After we eventually got sick of all the nibbling fish near the boat we swam around a bit and checked out a few bommie’s of coral, the tour operators have thoughtfully flagged these outcrops of coral so that the punters could find them easily. By now I’d made a new friend in one of the operators running the show, I think he was so happy that he had a punter on board that could swim ok he stuck with me for the rest of the dive. Showing him some photos of a clown fish on my camera he mentioned for me to follow him, eventually we were in about 6 inches of water surrounded by dead coral with only a few bits of soft coral alive, I was a little dubious when he started pointing at one of these soft corals but then, quite suddenly I saw a flash orange pocking out of the coral….bugger me it was Nemo! Now Nemo was very shy and I didn’t really get much of a photo of him but it’s the memory that counts.

Nemo, poking his head out for a look.

Returning to deeper water with my new mate close behind I swum over to check out another bommie closer to the boat, this was covered with a yellow and biege coloured hard coral but there was something else that caught my eye. At first I couldn’t tell if this well camouflaged fish was dead, but on closer inspection I realised that this Stone Fish was just playing dead waiting for prey, fuck! Luckily I got Sam’s attention straight away and pointed out the well camouflage danger, he was sitting on the coral only a couple of feet from the surface, it would be very easy to brush against him and then you would basically be cactus, first aid for a Stone Fish involves immersing to bitten area in really hot water but there wasn’t much hot water in the immediate vicinity, that’s for sure.

Can you pick the Stone Fish?

They are as deadly as they are ugly.

He was sitting on a bommie under maybe two or three feet of water.

Showing my new friend my discovery resulted in a lot of shouting and hand gestures from the crew, my new mate quickly returning with a large stick in which he preceded to stab at the Stone Fish until it decided that enough was enough and buggered off at a great rate of knots. After the excitement of Nemo and the Stone Fish I was pretty happy with this little snorkelling excursion, after being a little under whelmed to start with it had turned out to be a good experience. Climbing back onto the boat we took our snorkelling gear off for the last time on this holiday, we had been spoiled a bit with the diving on this trip, from almost uninhabited islands in Papua New Guinea, to a wreck in the Solomon Islands and then finally some notable fish sightings in Vanuatu it had been a great couple of weeks.

I reckon I could of swum over from the ship.

These guys run a good value for money tour, they would be especially good if you're not an experienced snorkeler.

After heading back to the ship for a late brekky we grabbed a water taxi and headed into town to check Port Vila out a bit. In all my previous visits I can only remember passing through this city so, with half a day up our sleeve we decided to check things out a little. Our water taxi dropped us off beside the casino and we wandered up the dusty street to the colourful market, once in town it was a little more obvious that the locals were still trying to get back on their feet after the cyclones, some of the buildings were still looking a bit worse for wear, with the government buildings still sitting derelict. To be honest today though we had lost a little enthusiasm for exploring, so after checking out the shops in the main streets we retired to the Cafe 4 for a nice banana smoothy before grabbing a water taxi to take us back to the ship.

Downtown Port Vila.

There are a few flash shops in Port Vila.

When he finds himself in Vila the Feral traveller drinks his banana smoothies at.....

With the water taxi speeding across Vila Bay we once again were witness to the damage that the recent cyclones had caused with millions of dollars worth of boats piled up on the shore slowly rusting away. Interestingly the market that used to be just outside the gates to the wharf has now been moved inside the wharf and you have to thread your way through the labyrinth of stalls to get back on the ship. Where the market used to be sited is now where the taxis and water taxis leave from.

The Port Vila Casino, the water taxis leave Vila from a block of land beside the casino.

There is a lot of reminders of Vanuatu's recent bad luck with tropical cyclones.

To get back on the ship requires negotiating a bit of a labyrinth of stalls.

But it's way better than a tender!

The Dirt.
Port Villa is a typical south Pacific capital, a bit hot, dusty and rough around the edges, but I really enjoy poking around these places soaking up how the locals live. Our snorkelling tour was with a company called Nemo tours, I’d recommend these guys particularly if your not a very experienced snorkeler.
Relevant Posts.
Champagne Bay, Espiritu Santo, Vanuatu, 2016.
Luganville, Espiritu Santo, Vanuatu, 2016.
Mele Cascades, Efate, Vanuatu, 2013.

It looks like a lot of the stall holders are partners of the water taxi operators, so at the end of the day the stalls come down, the stock goes into the boats and off they go back home.

With almost military precision the market was packed up and by the time we sailed away the wharf was almost deserted.