#aneityum

Saturday 15th February 2025 – Mystery Island, Vanuatu.

With another hour back on the clocks to put us on Vanuatu time, we were both wide awake by 4.30am but still miles from our destination. The weather still looked decidedly dodgy (that’s a technical term!) so hopes were not high….

Shown in my old school atlas as the ‘New Hebrides’, Vanuatu is an archipelago of 83 islands stretching 680 miles from the Solomon Islands in the north to New Caledonia in the south and settled about 3,000 years ago. The Spanish came in the 17th century, then the French and British until independence was achieved in 1980.

During World War II, the Americans had two military bases on the islands and Vanuatu was the setting for James Michener’s novel ‘Tales of the South Pacific’, the basis for the musical show and movie ‘South Pacific’.

Our original itinerary had us calling at the capital Port Vila but around lunchtime on 17th December 2024, the islands were hit by a magnitude 7.3 earthquake centred just 5 miles off the coast, resulting in at least 14 dead, 265 injured and widespread damage, including the collapse of many homes and public buildings.

Consequently, our ‘port’ today was instead this tiny uninhabited island some 200 miles away at the extreme southern end of the archipelago.

Indeed, ‘Mystery Island’ (or ‘Inyeug’ to the locals) is so small, it’s not much bigger than its grass airstrip and the only ‘locals’ come here from the nearby island of Aneityum whenever a cruise ship arrives!

Well, arrive we did about 8.30am and they lowered the boats……and then raised them again! Captain ‘Stan’ came on the tannoy and said, in his best seductive but apologetic French accent that our call at Mystery Island would have to be called off; the weather, not brilliant at 9am, was expected to deteriorate during the day and with sea swells threatening the shelter of the anchorage, he didn’t want to risk putting people ashore and not being able to get them back again!

If I’m honest, I’m a bit relieved because, having pre-booked a snorkelling excursion for this morning, I had no wish to be obliged to go snorkelling in the rain!

So, as we sailed away in the rain, Mystery Island remains – a mystery!