Port Vila

It was incredibly hot and humid as we arrived in Port Vila, the capital of the Vanuatu islands. As with Noumea in British Caledonia we were surprised at how busy and reasonably modern the whole town was. The main part of town was about a half hour walk away but a myriad of locals had been permitted entrance to a gated area around the ship's 'terminal'. We had an afternoon excursion booked so spent a hot and sweaty morning strolling the various extremely colourful stalls where I bought a couple of local souvenirs. Then, in the afternoon, we went onboard a glass bottomed boat to a snorkelling site away from the ship. We saw many fish and the coral here was much better, although it is still recovering from the cyclone of a few years back. Just before we returned to the ship we noticed the sky had darkened and although the man operating the wee boat put his foot down, so to speak, the torrential rain caught up with us. It was monsoon like and lasted about fifteen minutes - however it was still warm and we were already wet from the snorkelling so it was actually quite fun. Once on board we relished a quick change into dry swimming costumes and headed for the pool on the ship to warm up and relax!