And so off to Vanuatu

Why go there?

I guess it's probably a fair question to ask: why take a trip to Vanuatu? Aside from the obvious answer "why not?" it turns out that Vanuatu was one of those lucky "Plan B" choices, second to Western Australia. The original intention was to go diving at Ningaloo reef near Exmouth. During April the Whale Sharks migrate through the area and that, combined with the warm water and sunshine, seemed to be the perfect recipe for my first vacation in two years. Friends have raved about the reefs, the diving and of course the aquatic wildlife and it sounded perfect. As it turns out, however, the early April timeframe more or less coincided with school holidays and for a number of reasons it made the trip impractical. As is often the case this in turn became a blessing in disguise. Plans changed.

To cut a long story short, destinations were changed but the essence remained the same. It was definitely time to get back into the water and do some more diving. You see, when dad was sick I thought it would be good to get out and do something random. At that time, diving turned out to be it. I got my entry level diving certificate (PADI Open Water, for the divers out there) back in 2009 and in the process fell in love with the underwater world. Until that point I have not spent much time under the surface of the sea. During the training dives I found the underwater world to be thoroughly fascinating. Very few experiences in my life have come close to the serenity of diving. Being nearly weightless, floating through an alien landscape, breathing easily and being surrounded by weird and wonderful creatures (sometimes) is a journey of pure curiosity.

This last summer I made an effort with friends to get back into the water but only really got as far as snorkelling. Don't get me wrong, snorkelling is great. I love it and during the summer I got to see a side of Sydney and I’ve never explored before, snorkelling my way through Sydney’s beaches. It’s also been a great way to get into underwater photography, but it's still one stop short of diving. When snorkelling, the period underwater is really determined buy one’s lung capacity. Even for a decent pearl diver that’s only about 5 minutes at a time. For me … much less. But I digress. Needless to say, presented with the opportunity it would have been negligent to miss the chance to weave diving into it all.

So we committed to it. Tickets purchased, accommodation reserved and transfers organised. All there was left was to wait for it to come around. Of course, Air Vanuatu had a few hiccups along the way and cancelled, then reinstated our flights. Luckily, things were more or less going to plan.

And so off to Vanuatu, which is what this one is really all about.

Anticipation and small Chinese aircraft

I always love and hate the last few days before a holiday. For some reason, no amount of good planning and forewarning of others ever seems to prevent the last minute panic that accompanies leaving the office for even a relatively trivial amount of time. It’s usually about 5pm on the day before leaving that some calamity descends and does it’s best to prevent said vacation from occurring. On the flip side, despite this pre-vacation frenzy these days are, of course, the last few days before embarking on some sort of journey bearing the promise of new experiences … preferably good ones.

This time I discovered something interesting. Normally as I leave the office I send out the obligatory email that reads something like “I’m going to be out of the office until X April 2011. Please see Y if you have question regarding project Z” – you get the idea. Like a good little worker I routinely do this in the 5 seconds before shutting down and leaving for the last time, thus ensuring I’m available until the last possible moment to answer questions and help out those needing assistance. That is, of course, unless I forget to send the email. To avoid the hassle of logging in remotely and setting this up after the fact, I decided this time that I would send the email mid afternoon. Amazingly all questions, queries and panics stopped more or less instantly. It would appear that people regard the “Goodbye, I’m off” email as meaning that I’m really off, right then and there, so any further interaction is liable to yield nothing. Eureka! Just don’t spread it too far around. I’d hate for everyone to get wise to this and ruin the whole trick.

With packed bags, hopes high and not really knowing what it was going to be like when we got there, we set off to the airport, all the while hoping that Air Vanuatu had avoided any last minute changes of plan.

Step 1: Check in. No problems. Step 2: Immigration. No problems. Step 3: Security. No problems. Step 4: Wait at gate. Well, only really minor problems. Our flight, which was now going to go through Melbourne instead of direct to Port Vila had been delayed. Step 5: On plane. No problems other than tardiness. That’s OK in my book. Step 6: Melbourne. More delays. Late again. Still OK, since being a little late is not really a big deal. That is unless, of course, one needs to catch a connecting flight … which we did.

We landed in Port Vila at about the time our connection to Espiritu Santo Island was due to depart. The staff on the plane were great and informed us that we should make our way to the front door of the plane to enable a speedy bolt down the stairs, into the terminal and through immigration. With gusto and a great sense of importance we pulled the “sorry, have a connecting flight” card and managed to do as instructed, making it out of the plane, into the hot and humid tropical air, racing our way into and then through immigration. Everything was going well until we made it to the baggage carousel. Ground staff helpfully informed us that our bags would arrive on the carousel like everyone else’s and we would have to grab and run them over to the domestic terminal (domestic terminal = the shed next to this one) where we would check them in. This seemed to undercut the whole rush-rush process a little but we played along.

In the end, only one of our bags ended up doing the carousel Tango, and the rest were … well who knows? During our wait, we befriended an Australian couple that moved to Santo Island and with a nonchalance that seems to accompany island living they more or less said that our bags, might, perhaps, possibly have already been looked after, or even might not have arrived in the first place. Such emphatic confidence wasn’t quite enough to assuage our concerns, but as it turns out we needn’t have worried. So there were four of us. That nominally means four bags, right? With only one on the carousel we were tempted to wait for the rest until another helpful member of ground staff told us that we were needed in the domestic terminal in a hurry as our plane was waiting. Our bags, we were reassured, had all been looked after. When quizzed about the one bag that made it onto the carousel he looked momentarily stricken and then after a brief pause … shrugged. So many of life’s dilemmas can be solved with a shrug, no? At any rate, three out of four bags is pretty good, right? Nonetheless we were to follow him and, well, hustle.

The ground staff rushed us through customs. Well “rush” might not be the right word. We were walked though customs and all four of us were told to drop our forms in the hands of the already occupied customs people and continue walking without delay. This we did and without a backward glance followed on the heels of our guide thereby neatly bypassing the entire customs process. Not bad.

We ambled (remembering that we were now in the South Pacific islands where even a rush seems more relaxed) across to domestic only to be greeted be closed doors and vacant check in booths. Our guide changed hats, turned on the lights and completed the rest of our check in. With airport tax paid the only problem was now to get out into our plane. Locked departure doors are never a good sign when one has been told to hurry. Still thinking that we were holding up the departure of our connection we attempted to open the doors only to be greeted with laughter from behinds us. As we turned around we saw a few locals having a good belly laugh at our failed attempts to flee and also saw the captain of the plane, whose first words were “what are you doing? We haven’t boarded yet!”. Ah. Time to sit down.

When boarding finally happened we saw The Plane. We had head whispers of the Chinese Plane and now were greeted with its full splendour. Let’s just say that it was a plane without frills. To be fair it seemed like it had all the things a plane should have (like engines, wheels, a cabin and thankfully two unworried looking pilots), but it was more akin to an old bus than a plane. Still, it managed to get off the ground, stay off the ground and fly without too much trouble. It also got us there in one piece and after about one hour of ear pounding, we disembarked, industrially deaf but finally where we wanted to be, full of excitement and pretty damn happy to be on holidays. In the spirit of a happy ending, our bags made it too. We couldn’t be happier. We got to our resort filled with hope for good diving, sun and relaxation, not necessarily in that order.