The Best Christmas Present Ever

Ok....It may not be the best Christmas present ever but I did enjoy it. Mark did a fine job making me some green Kool Aid. The Kraft Dinner was awsome. I wish I could say that I shared but I did not. My only selfesh act all Christmas season.

This is the weather we had to put up with when we got back from our trip. There has been major flooding in southern Queensland.

Christmas Day

They made this gingerbread house village. The Captain brought Santa to the main lounge to give out gifts to all the kids.

Ryan and Mark with Santa and his helpers. Ryan recieved a P&O sun visor and Mark got a singing dog. Carol cannot wait until those battries are dead.

Our favorite bartender Darius. There were lots of Phillipinos on the ship. They sign on for 6-8 months straight. Then they get 5 weeks off.

Not a bad tempurature for Christmas Day

Champagne Bay

The 5th and final stop was Champagne Bay in Vanuatu. It is the nicest beach I was ever on. The water was crystal clear and very warm.

They have a bar that opens when the cruise ship comes in. I had to try a Tuskeny beer. It is the beer of Vanuatu.

More singing for donations for their church.

For $2 you could have your photo taken with a snake.

We did a tour of The Blue Lagoon. It is a natural fresh water spring. For $32 we got a drive in the worlds oldest van to the lagoon. When we got there we had to come up with another $20 to go down to it. It didn't bother me too much but I did enjoy watching other tourist get bent out of shape over the 2nd charge. We had a nice swim in it.
On the way down to the spring there was some kids singing and dancing for donations.

We went through a village on the way to the spring. It looked very poor. There was about 300 residents in this village. At meal time everyone eats together. They bring their food to one spot and share with everybody.

Our boat The Pacific Sun anchored in the bay.

Vila, Vanuatu

Our fourth stop was at Vila, Vanuatu. We had a big day here. We did 2 shore tours and had a really nice swim at the beach below. This beach was about a 5 min walk from the boat and the water was fantastic. Mark wouldn't come in. He was worried about sea urchins and he wasn't wearing his swim trunks. Ryan and I were also not wearing our swim trunks but we hopped in anyways. It was about 35 C and humid.

They had an island night on the ship as we left Vila.

This is the reason Mark wouldn't get in the water. There were thousands of these guys in the water on the way to the beach. There were none at the beach. There were a few announcements to watch out for them. I think that is why Mark was scared of them.

Mark rocking on Island night.

Vanuatu was known for their cannabalism. The last recorded act was in 1985. This photo should have been placed at the bottom of this section. At one time there was 2 million people on Vanuatu. Now there is only 200,000. There was lots of fighting between tribes for land. One of the reasons for cannabalism was there was a lack of food.
One of the shore tours was to Cascade waterfalls. This photo was taken on the way to the falls.

The guide that took us to the falls made mark a hat from a leaf.

These are the falls. We had a great swim at the bottom of them.

On the way back from the falls we stopped at a look off. The scenery was awesome.

The other tour we did in Vila was to a cultural village. We really enjoyed it. They talked about local customs and traditions. Also, about local medicine, food storage, hunting and fishing techniques. They also showed us some traditional song and dances.

This was our tour guide. His name was c4. He was quite funny. He was telling us how you can tell a married woman on certain islands in Vanuatu. On one island they take a rock and smash out the ladies two front teeth. So if you smile at a young lady and she smiles back and she has no front teeth you should stay away because she's married. Another less painful way was they tattooed under the left eye. Another good story he told was that chiefs of the tribes were allowed to have more then 1 wife. The greatest chief had 102 wives. When chiefs died his wives were buried with him. It didn't mattered if they were living or not.

Young children learn to weave at a young age.

Ryan is still wet from our swim.

Ilse de Pines New Caladonia & Mystery Island Vanuatu

The 3rd stop on our tour was Mystery Island Vanuatu. It was a nice island with excellent snorkeling.

They had some locals singing. They were raising money for their church.
We walked around the island. It only took 45 mins to do so.

We found nemo while snorkeling.

Isle De Pines New Caladonia was our 2nd stop. This is the resort on the island.



Ryan on deck as we pulled into the Ilse De Pines.

Noumea New Caledonia

The 1st stop on our Cruse was the town of Noumea. It is in the country of New Caledonia. It was one of the biggest dumps I have ever been in. I am not sure why the ship even stops there. There are pretty spots there but they are surrounded by a not so pretty town. There was a garbage strike there which wouldn't help the matter any. New Caledonia is a French colony as you can tell by the french flag flying below. It was also very expensive there. It was $16 for a beer in a pub.


They did put on a Christmas play. It was pretty good except it was in french.

One of the stores we dropped into. It was neat because the man in the photo sewed up all the clothes shown in the shop. There were lots of stores that carried these kinds of clothes.

An old church.

The highlight of Noumea was that the ship hired this local dance troop. They did there cultural dance and had a really good fire show. My camerea refused to take a good photo of that.

Frangipani

These flowers are growing in a pot downstairs. They smell wonderful!