Sans Souci: November 2017

Another gem in Vanuatu

An amazing find at Suranda Bay on Santo Island. We spent 10 glorious days exploring the bays and restaurants then hired a driver for the day to take us to the Blue Hole, Champagne Beach and Port Alwry, where we had a fabulous seafood lunch and saw our first live coconut crabs.

Our anchorage at Suranda Bay

The village children from Suranda Bay on Sans Souci

Catching a ride to the restaurant for lunch

Another great spot that we found

The beach at Port Alwry was awesome

In front of seafood restaurant at Port Alwry

Sundowners on the beach at Suranda Bay

Kayaking in the river at Suranda Bay

Paul and crew off Skellum coming ashore for sundowners

A live Coconut Crab

Our Crew Geoff enjoying his crab

The seafood restaurant at Port Alwry

Had a fantastic visit to Dillon's Bay, Erramonga, one of the highlights was a visit to the ancestral caves were the last five village Chiefs bones and skeletons laid side by side, what an awesome experience, we had to rock climb hanging onto tree roots to climb up to the cave.

One live chief amongst 5 very dead ones.

We were also treated to a pot luck dinner at the home of our guide Donald and his wife Lotti. Had a guided tour of the kindergarten-cum primary school. At the secondary school we were treated to a tour of the year 7 and 8 students classes. We left a cricket set with the principal for the students, along with some personal hygiene packs for the senior girls (compliments of WWSA). Donald also took us on a Guided tour of the village, we had gifts of rice, tinned tuna, children's clothes (provided by my sister Josephine) coloured pencils, books, we wanted to give them to the very needy and it was heartbreaking to see some of the elderly widows and widowers who were handicapped in many ways. The children loved our gifts of clothes, not sure about the toothbrushes and toothpaste. The joy on their faces when my Husband Hugh gave them a tennis ball each warmed our hearts.

A young boy was given a soccer ball which we traded for crayfish (yum).

The children all wanted to come aboard our Catamaran, so we invited them on board for their very first visit on a boat. They were all very excited and offered us a gift of Papaya and coconut in return.

The village children on Sans Souci in Dillon's Bay

We moved on to our last village at Malua Bay before heading to Santo, Luganville. We were met by the chiefs daughter-in-law Margaret in her dug out. She invited us to her village and said she would bake us some bread. We gathered the rest of the goodies we had to give to the people and went ashore to be met by the chiefs son sho took us to their village.