Can’t believe we arrived here in Port Vila, on Efate Island, Vanuatu, a week ago already. Starting to find our bearings. Port Vila is a very busy place being the capital of the Vanuatu group of islands. It is very dusty, lots of traffic, buzzing with people, shops and tourists. The market is very colourful and the supermarket, Le Bon Marche is like shopping in France. Bliss. This place really grows on you. Falbala is comfortably moored on a buoy in pretty surroundings. The bar ashore, called the Waterfront, is relax and friendly. That’s where yachties hang around everyday for Happy Hour. We had a good lunch there of seafood platter (see photo). Laundry is taken care of ashore by a lovely lady. All very friendly and easy. So this is not a bad place to be based.

Today we hired a quod bike and toured the island. It is very green and luscious. Big cattle farms. Palm plantations. Riding through local villages is always interesting. Smiling people, always waving at you and playful children. Yet, like on all Pacific islands, they live off the land in very rudimentary houses or shacks.

We stopped at Blue lagoon with its gorgeous turquoise water.

We had lunch at La Mer, a French beach restaurant where we were the only client. There aren’t many people around anyway. We hardly saw any other cars or tourists on the road. Lunch was tasty. Mike had local beef which was delicious and I had garlic prawns. Unfortunately the wind was blowing quite hard and it felt a bit chilly so we didn’t linger around.

We stopped in a village where the men where building their nakamal or meeting house , a place where the men of the village gather at sunset and drink kava. A very macho way of live!

We visited a WWII museum, a place where an American plane crashed due to lack of fuel. The pilot was unharmed. The plane is still visible and you can snorkel around it.

We also fed the fish with coconut flesh in crystal clear water and visited a cave.

Then we stopped at The Havannah Hotel. Total luxury. Beautiful.

A compulsory stop at Le Bon Marche on the way back (!) to buy more delicious food and now we are back on board, enjoying a G&T and digesting all we saw today.

A very good day it was indeed!