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From Bla to Wow (to ouch!)

Writer's picture: Pru WarrenPru Warren

Oct. 15 (Tuesday)

 

I was lured out under false pretenses…



 

The promised monsoon was NOT ACCEPTABLE. At least in Cabin 512 on the starboard side. Maybe the captain spent the whole night chewing his nails and skillfully navigating epic swells to spare his passengers any discomfort, but the promised “pitching” was no more eventful than usual.

 

Bummer.

 

The day dawned slowly, under cotton-wool clouds. Rain on the windows fractured the view of an island in the distance. It wasn’t until I got to breakfast on the back deck that I realized we weren’t just at harbor in Espiritu Santo (largest island in Vanuatu)—we were actually docked on a big old quay. And facing us, demonstrating the magnificent beauty of Vanuatu, was a wall of shipping containers gleaming in the rain.

 

An inauspicious beginning.

 

The plan was that we would get on busses or something and go to a museum about World War II in the Pacific. We have that expert on board—Ian—and I suspect many of my fellow travelers are here BECAUSE of him and their fascination with WWII in the Pacific. So the museum was going to be stop number one, followed by stop number two at Million Dollar Point, WHERE it was intimated WE COULD GO SNORKELING.

 

The alternative was to get up at 5:30 in the morning and go on an all-morning birding hike, and that was right out. I feel like I’m on a ship full of Morning People; they were all atwitter over which of these two options they would enjoy.

 

Snorkeling, obviously. We had another  Vanuatu greeting ceremony on the pier, which was colorful.



They wore jingle shells on their ankles that made an impressive racket as they danced. One lunged right at me, pointing his heavy stick at my face just before they all froze, so I took advantage of the sudden silence to scream my loudest at him. To his credit, he remained frozen.

 

Then we piled into vans FAR too small for the average length of the American thigh bone and drove through Luganville. The guide told us how amazing their culture was because the Americans had built a base there in WW2, and how great that was. “Our buildings are all built on the concrete slabs the Americans left when they moved out and took every blessed thing with them.”

 

Oddly, all the things the Americans did NOT take, they brought in 100 bulldozers, stripped the place of anything they couldn’t pack out, and drove every single blessed thing (ultimately including the bulldozers) into the sea so no one else could have them. You might think they were keeping the equipment from The Enemy, but no. They’d offered to sell the equipment to the French and the English, who thought that the US ought to just GIVE all the stuff to them. In response, the US dumped it all at sea, driving it out along a long jetty and then blowing up the jetty.

 

And that was Million Dollar Point.

 

What a strange place to honor. This was Vanuatu’s most beloved tourist destination. We drove to the beach (after far too long at a tiny museum) and every one of us pawed through the sand. The guy who wound up next to me on the van ride back found an almost perfect Coca Cola bottle. I found the bottom of a glass bottle, washed smooth by the sand, that said SAN FRANCISCO CALIF. Who knows from whence it came?



I was moments from pocketing it; maybe it was made eighty years ago. Maybe it was made two years ago. Who knew?

 

But I came to my senses. What was I going to do with a hunk of beach glass? I left it on the picnic table (next to a piece of beach glass I'd ildly thought to give to my friend Robs Driebe, who is the king of beach glass already and didn't need it) where I ended up sitting to wait out the others who were prowling in search of…what? What did they think they were going to find?

 

Worst of all, NO SNORKELING. The conditions were too rough. Harry and I got back in the vans and we drove back to the boat. This afternoon, we’re going to drive another 45 minutes to a Blue Hole, where we’re assured the swimming will be stunning. Twig and Harry have already opted to not go; I’ll be untethered. And ultimately I suspect I’ll be bored…but I suppose if you come all the way to Vanuatu and only admire the heavily-pot-holed roads that the Americans left behind (“we’re very grateful to you!”), then it’s only right to experience the blue hole and see what that’s all about…

 

Later

 

I’ve finally seen a “cultural event” that I would recommend to anyone—it is the “water music” performance of Vanuatu. We were told that this usually takes place in the ocean, but that the water was too rough; we’d be witnessing this performance at the same place—the Matevulu Blue Hole—where we could go for a swim.



The place was the kind of disorganized that lets you know this isn’t an American amusement park, which is refreshing. We got out of our vans and were pointed generally in the right direction, but there were no clear signs of where to go, and the pathways were either grass, roots, the sharp kind of coral, and some rapidly-decaying concrete. I ended up gingerly tiptoeing down a steep, uncertain slope toward a wooden bench set in the water of a freshwater pool. Even though the day was overcast, it was indeed beautifully blue.

 

When I finally lowered myself onto the bench, clutching my non-waterproof phone in my nervous hand, I realized that the bench was sitting in about three inches of water on a shelf into the pool. Was it natural? Decaying concrete? I have no idea. But to the right, I could see a group of local women in their palm tree costumes, each wearing a different colorful crown of flowers. So I stood on the shelf in the water and eased forward.

 

We were all doing it; realizing what we were looking at and edging closer. I finally sat on a large concrete block in about eight inches of water, looking at maybe a dozen women who were standing at about waist-deep on the concrete steps that went down and into the pool. One woman’s beautiful little child stood in the shallows, her crown a beautiful creamy white, and watched us all.

 

When we were all in place, a guy up the hill announced what the women were doing. It was something about uniting the ocean and the land, about community, about I’m not sure what…and then all of the women began beating the water in unison. HUGE jets of pond water exploded, making non-waterproof phone or camera people beat a hasty retreat.



And their rhythms and patterns were dazzling. Somehow they played music just by slapping the water—and it was jaw-dropping. If only I could post the brief videos I took before attempting to hide my phone from the water—but my blog won’t let me unless they can pull it from some other source and I don’t have an Instagram or YouTube account.

 

But I can tell you how widely I was grinning by the end—which was almost wide enough for my head to fall off the back. They were amazing. When they finished, each woman passed her crown on to a watching audience member, and I was proud to get the lovely crown from the toddler. Such an honor!



After hiding my phone back up the path in a dryer place, I was on my way back down to go for a swim—and to get in on the lessons that some of the women were giving interested watchers—when my sandal slipped on the uncertain concrete. The rubber bent back and under, as did my second toe, which was when I pulled half a toenail off…



But I’ve been to see the ship’s doctor and he and his excellent assistant gave me antibiotic cream and bandaids; enough to replace after any snorkeling. (The ship’s doctor is the one who freedives many feet down and who recommends I clear my ears first; I gather he’s a snorkel junkie too, so he understood.)

 

Then I tried to make the amazing array of sounds in the water as the young women who were teaching people could make. I could not. They formed their hands into curved claws and created a definite note in the water; I did it and made a splash. They sliced their hands sideways into the water and then flattened them to make a booming base note; I made a splash.

 

At least no one else in our group could do it either! But we had a wonderful time trying. Then I had a drift in the lovely cool water…and remembered how much less buoyant one is in fresh than in salt water.

 

The Matevulu Blue Hole has COMPLETELY redeemed Espirito Santo for me!

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1件のコメント


megnapierauthor
2024年10月29日

I NEED to see that video when you're home!


いいね!
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