Day 29 Luganville, Vanuatu

What an unbelievable day. The rains were torrential…. People were busy everywhere building arks. We are talking biblical kind of stuff….. In other words it was raining like crazy. As we sailed into Luganville, Vanuatu on the island of Espiritu Santo, I was a bit distressed by the weather primarily because I had a shore excursion to the beach. I went to the Queen’s Lounge at 0745 and who did I see? My favorite waiter, Yan Yan from Indonesia. I had him for my waiter last year for about 7 months and asked for him again on this world voyage. He knows what I will order before I do….. He’s fabulous! (nice photo) Anyway, I went to report for my beach tour. Certainly they would cancel it you say? No way! HAL goes at all costs. It was a bit of a joke going to the beach with the rain coming down in torrents but we did go. After an hour at the beach we went to the Blue Hole where things really got comical. It was a steep and slippery slope to get down to the Blue Hole. We had 4 mini buses full of elderly people and some that had difficulty getting around. The steep, slippery slope was just what the doctor ordered. I was afraid that one gentleman who fell may have hurt himself. Many people wisely chose to stay up by the buses rather than risk injury. After we collected the people who had gone down to the Blue Hole things really got interesting. We were sitting in the mini bus with no air-conditioning with lots of mosquitoes (in Malaria country) and it was getting really hot. We sat there for a long time. Finally, I couldn’t take it anymore and I got out of the bus to see why we weren’t leaving. Guess what? The mini busses couldn’t get up the muddy slope. Attempt after attempt was being made; even some of the guests were helping to push the buses up the hill. What a circus….. We finally go all the buses up the hill and headed back to the ship. Needless to say, HAL got very, very low marks for that performance. After I got back, I headed back out to check out the little town of Luganville (in the pouring rain). It was a fun trip walking through town. The people were very friendly and welcomed us with open arms… It was a pretty good day. The only change I would have made would have been to not go on the shore excursion. Even though you lose your money, sometimes it’s best to not go…. Tomorrow, we will be on another island in the country of Vanuatu, Efate. We arrive into Port Vila early in the morning. No shore excursion for me. I will tour the town and hit an island for some beach time, weather permitting.