Journal #003 - Vanuatu Island Hopping
Vanuatu - Island Hopping
A few years ago a long-time Aussie mate rang me from Vanuatu. He told me that he’d gone there on a one-way ticket and was now living in a hut on a sun-drenched island beach. He really caught my interest when he said that his hut was a short wander along the sand from three decent surf breaks. So no time like now! I made up my mind then and there that I had to get on a plane ASAP and pay him a visit. After all… isn’t living like that the ultimate surfer’s dream?
When I got there it reality didn’t disappoint. His hut was very, very cool. It was one of several in the village and the closest to the beach. Its walls were constructed from coral and its roof was thatched from palm leaves. Picture perfect, it was perched on a grassy bank, just meters from the edge of the warm tropical sand. All that lay between his front door and the beach was a small strip of buffalo grass just wide enough to fit two or three boards and a couple of deck chairs.
My mate had integrated into the village lifestyle pretty fast. He was enjoying the amazing fresh fruits and produce of the islands as well as the warm and friendly goodwill of the island’s inhabitants. They were beautiful unaffected people totally in tune with their natural surrounds. Their world ran on “island time” the precision of hours and minutes became instantly irrelevant so I ceremoniously removed my wristwatch and dropped it into my suitcase. What a release… freedom! Each morning I woke to the sound of the surf crashing onto the reef near the end of our beach. It took little effort to check it out. All I had to do was lift my head off my pillow and take a look.
The surf was - as my mate had described - basically three reef set ups all of which worked best on the incoming tide. Low tide was very shallow. Even at half tide it wasn't for the faint hearted. The waves were very clean. Combined with the offshores and crystal clear water it made for spectacular conditions. The waves impacting the reef in the far corner of the beach packed a decent punch on the days that the swell moved above head high. Low tide days also gave us the opportunity to explore the island further. We combed its many hidden shell covered coves and clambered up its rocky outcrops. Where the lush forest met the water tropical trees jutted out over the crystal blue sea. It was nature’s perfect tropical garden. And I’m sure it had been that way for millennia.
Both my mate and I had a long-time mutual friend who was also living in the Vanuatu island chain. He was on a smaller island, only accessible by light aircraft or boat. We decided to pay him a visit but on the planned day the weather took a turn for the worse. Approaching the airport I was convinced there would be no flights that day. Lots of planes weren’t leaving, but our pilot had different ideas! I didn’t know whether it was a good thing or not, but our plane was taking off! Space onboard was at a premium. I boarded, found my seat (anywhere will do!) and sat perched with my feet up on our two surf boards. As the plane gathered speed down the runway I watched the tarmac racing past below me through a sizeable gap in the plane’s fuselage. Once off the ground the plane literally got blown skywards. And as the sea and the sky blended into a uniform shade of tropical blue it was increasingly tossed around like a cork in a storm. In order to ease our passage my mate and I made the adult decision to knock the top of a bottle of duty free. It definitely calmed our frayed nerves and helped us prepare for what proved to be an equally stressful landing just 45 minutes after take-off. Our landing was literally a free fall through a hole in the sky onto a rain sodden grass patch the size of a footy field. The only consolation was my hope that our island pilot had performed this tricky manoeuvre many times before. Our mutual mate was there to greet us at the end of the grass runway. He was all smiles when he spotted our ghost-white faces. “Don’t worry”, he said, “it’s always like this.”
His self-built guesthouse was a short tractor ride from the landing strip. I was impressed by its incredible location. He’d built it at the base of a funnel-shaped tropical valley. Behind it was a waterfall; in front a magnificent lagoon. It was a truly unique escape from the rest of the world. Given its remote location he was living off the grid. The waterfall provided hydropower. And the little food that he couldn’t cultivate he purchased from the nearby village. We spent a week exploring his island, travelling along its sandy beaches and narrow tropical tracks. We saw deserted beaches and reef breaks that I’m sure other surfers never had. The most memorable surf spot that we found was a beach break near the far end of the island. It was remote – even for the villagers - and we surfed it for hours. We could see other breaks in the distance. But they had to wait for another time. We were running out of daylight and had to get back to the guesthouse before nightfall for fear of getting lost on one of the island’s narrow and unlit 4WD tracks.
Despite our exploration we didn’t actually have to go far from our mate’s house for a surf. He had his own private beach with a great little reef break in the corner that drew up beautifully into a peaky left when the swell was up. He’d built a tree house near the edge of the beach. It provided us with a place to rest when we weren’t surfing or reef diving. And at the end of the day it was a great place to sit with a cold one. In the fading golden light we’d watch the trevalla dart between the schools of baitfish as the sun went down. When our visit ended and it was time to re-board the plane for the flight back to the main island, my mate’s words were still ringing in my ears …“it’s always like this”. So we boarded the plane duty free bottles at the ready. Thankfully it was a calm flight home. As a bonus there was a magnificent sunset on display as we followed the island chain all the way back. Even the fellow next to me with four chickens in a hessian sack was impressed. I’m not so sure that the chickens were though!
A few days back on the main island and then I was on my way back home to Australia. What a trip I thought, as I sat and recalled my time in the islands. None of it seemed quite real. But then again I suppose it depends upon what you mean by “real”.
