We arrived here at the mysterious Mystery Island sometime early in the morning (I was not even conscious when we dropped anchor) and I was awoken by the loud sounds of the tenders being lowered into the water so that we could be tendered ashore. Once we were all dressed and showered, we made our way down to breakfast slightly later than usual but none the less, had a bellies full with food and ready for a day out on the island.
Mystery Island is the southern most island in the Vanuatu group of islands and is a tiny island approximately 1km2 in area. It takes less than a minute to cross from one side of the island to the other and approximately 45mins to walk around the entire island. It is also uninhabited by anyone as the locals believe it to be haunted. The island is most famous for being used during World War 2 by the English and American as a landing strip to land (and I suspect refuel) their planes. The tender process this morning went incredibly smoothly, and we were pretty much able to get onto a tender straight away. On arrival onto the island, we were greeted with some island music and also stalls of local arts and crafts.
We found a quiet spot along the beach, which was quite difficult as there over a thousand passengers that were on the small island looking for the same thing as we were – warm waters and somewhere to lie down like a beached whale lol. Once settled, Andrew and I went into the water while Rob and Tori were too sunburnt and sore to head in. The waters were a little dirty from the rain and storms of the previous couple of days, and indeed, it had continued to rain as we were in the water and later when we had gotten out and were lying on the beach. The rain however, wasn't too bad as it was fairly light and was only intermittent.
After enough of sun, rain, sea and sand, we wandered along the local markets (set up by the locals from the much larger island across the bay) and made our way to the airstrip where we did a couple of Jetstar Jumps on the runway and hung out on the beach found on the other side of the island. The lines for the tender back were incredibly long so Tori and I got Rob and Andrew to line up while we continued to enjoy the waves hitting the beach and took some photos of hermit crabs crawling along the sand. As the line moved (there had been an issue with one of the tenders halfway through the morning and also an accident which held up the embarking and disembarking of the tender, Tori and I came back in line and were told off by some fat moles.
Back on board, we de-sanded and made our way down to the dining room to get some much needed lunch. This afternoon was a fairly uneventful one spent sleeping and napping, getting ready for some high seas action at Pirate Night tonight. There was a lot less people dressed up tonight than there was last night. After dinner, we went to the Pirates of the Pacific show which was pretty funny to watch – lots of sexual innuendo…
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