Saturday 1st June

In the morning we dinghied over to a beach near the mouth of our bay & collected shells and swam/snorkled. Lovely coral -quite different to Lifou but still gorgeous.

After a relaxing morning and lunch we headed over to the yacht club for our lift to the volcano, joined by a young aussie couple who are working in Port Vila at the international school and a n australian girl volunteering in a school on Efate.

The volcano tour is quite a professionaly run tourist  exerience complete with tribal dance and blessing from the chief to ward off any risk of being eaten by the volcano. A rough 4WD ride up through forest then a short (10 min) climb up to the rim arriving just before sunset. At first in daylight you don't see more than some white smoke/steam drifting out of the chasm but then a tremendous bang was followed by a single large black rock flung high into the sky above our heads. Then as the light faded we moved round the unguarded rim (we had been given a safety briefing- don't knock your neighbour into the volcano with your backpack) and the fiery orange glow appeared, bubbling and spurting in an overheated stew sort of way untill with another almighty boom the magma is blasted upwards creating a spectacular firework display.

The show gets better and better as darkness falls & we were allowed to drink our fill of the mesmerising view of the bowels of the earth exposed for our delight. If the 

devil exists then down there in that fiery pit is where he lives, shouting and spitting with uncontrolled fury at the hapiness all round his house.

Back in the truck Wendel suggested that I might be able to help fix his toilet problem at the yacht club. I have become Mr Fixit after the outboard success. He speaks good english and told us his plans for the business- he wants to get 3 cabins fitted out with hot water and electric lights (all solar), and then upgrade the yacht club restaurant.  The cabins are on booking.com but he has been getting negative comments because of the water problems.

The meal at Leas was wonderful- fish with lots of lovely veg; choco, spinach, yam, casava and tarro with an onion sauce and lots of rice if we could find room, followed by beautifuly ripe papya, all for around £7 each.

Good stamping- you can feel the vibrations through the ground.