Tuesday 17 June - exploring Luganville town

Commodore
2 days ago
2 min read

The divers had to go into the centre to get their equipment and weights sorted. Alia Vita have all their own gear that needed inspecting, but Rowan needed sorting out. It was all a bit of a panic as Rowan has lost his Naui Diving card and he could not be found on the Naui system. Poor Chrissy back home had to rifle through our desk drawers looking for the certificate and finally found his log book. In the end he had to phone Naui HQ who surprisingly answered straight away and found him on the system, his birth date was incorrect which is why the dive centre could not find it. Quite impressive as Rowan qualified with Naui in 1992 in Belize!

We went across the channel to Luganville town afterwards. It had a different feel to Port Vila, I guess Port Vila is still struggling from the earthquake in March. We looked around a few shops, Rowan found a much better panga for chopping coconuts, and thankfully found some eggs.

We visited the WW2 Museum which was interesting, mainly exhibiting bits from the Coolidge wreck, and a good video of the wreck. Amazingly there were only 2 people killed out of the 5340 people on board. One was a firefighter and the other was a captain in the army who went back to get his troops out of the infirmary. He got them all out but he never made it out himself. He was posthumously given bravery awards, then in 2014 divers found his remains, they were DNA checked against his relatives and proved to be him. In 2015 his family came to collect his remains and he was given a full military funeral back in the US.

We found the fresh market which was fun to look around. I was delighted to find some huge avocados and some little tomatoes. I also bought a local dress, it is a definite style of bright colours with lace trim and puffy sleeves. One of our guides said the locals would be so chuffed if I wore a traditional dress, so I'm looking forward to wearing my bright orange and green dress with black lace trim! Rowan was thrilled to find a good butcher and stocked up with some beef. We stopped off at a little cafe for a fresh fruit juice and nibbles which was very good.

It is just too far to cross the channel at night, to go to a restaurant in town, so we decided to go back to the resort for supper. It was another very good meal.