The problem with traveling to third world countries is having to lower your expectations. For example, when Andrea and I were shown to our chairs, I couldn’t believe how ratty and tattered they looked. There were even crumbs on them from the previous guests. We both wanted something light to eat, and I ended up with two small slices of some sort of chicken wrap with overcooked chunks of chicken and a mound of what I think was a salad made of shredded carrot and either daikon or parsnip. Andrea didn’t fare much better. Although she went with the safer cheese and fruit plate, the fruit was overripe and brown and she only found two of the three cheeses edible. And don’t get me started on the restroom facilities. I’ll spare you the details, but think small, cramped, smelly – with a floor stickier than most old school movie theaters.

And that was only on the first flight.

(rimshot)

Thank you, thank you. I’m here all week. Try the veal and be kind to your waitresses.

To get to Fiji took us 28 hours. We left the house at 9am Sunday morning when my friend David came and drove us to RDU airport. There was then the 2.5 hour flight to DFW and about an hour there for us to get from the arrival gate to the next one.

If you have never been to DFW, there are five terminals, A through E, and American uses the first four. I usually flight into A or C and out the same, although if I have to get on a commuter jet those use terminal B, and if I am lucky I get to fly out of D – the newest terminal. That usually happens on international flights or flights to the west coast, and since our flight was going to LAX (and then on to Hawaii), terminal D it was.

To get from one to the other it is possible to walk, but most people take the Sky Train (or “TrAAin”). As we boarded I was surprised to find that someone had left a full backpack on the train. The car we were in was pretty empty, so I asked the ladies at the other end if it was their bag, and when they answered in the negative all of that fear of “unattended bags” that had been drilled into my head kicked in and I decided I needed to tell someone (the trains are automated so there are no staff on board).

This is kind of funny when you think about it. Prior to 9/11, I would have looked around and then probably opened the bag. Of course I would be doing this to check for some sort of identification of the owner, but I would also have been curious to see what kind of laptops, iPads, etc. would be in a bag someone would leave on a train.

After 9/11? I wasn’t touching it with a ten foot pole. Yes, the police state has done its job on me.

Anyway, I went over to the little speaker marked “emergency” and contacted whatever control center they have for these things, so at the next stop we were met by a guard and they took the train out of service.

He didn’t touch the bag, either.

The next train arrived two minutes later and we continued without incident.

Not much to say about the next flight. We arrived in LA with several hours to spare, so we checked in to the Admiral’s Club and just chilled. Air Pacific flies out of the International Terminal, so I knew we would have to leave and re-enter security, but from what I remembered the lounge in terminal 5 was not very nice so we weren’t in a hurry to get there. Andrea located some comfy, reclining chairs in a corner of the Admiral’s Club and she played on her iPad while I played on my phone.

She had taken the Hunger Games series to read on the plane and had finished book one by LA. Since she only had book two, I downloaded a digital copy of the last one so she could finish it. I felt kind of bad buying a) an e-book with DRM and b) a book we already own, but it was more reasonable than buying a new copy and lugging it around ($17 plus tax in hardback only vs. $6 from Amazon).

We eventually made our way over to the Tom Bradley terminal. The process was pretty painless (the line we were in didn’t have a “box” so I didn’t have to opt out and get the “search”) and the lounge was as I remembered it. Luckily we didn’t have to stay there long before we headed for the plane.

Along the way I bought a small box of Sees Candies for the crew. I find it is always a nice gesture to bring a little something for the crew on long International flights. They really appreciate it, and while it rarely results in a large amount of extra perks (one time they sent me home with two bottles of wine however) it’s good karma.

When I booked the flight I made sure to get us decent seats. Air Pacific only has a small business class in the nose of the 747 and the rest is dedicated to economy. Like the last time we were in Fiji, one of their two 747s is being remodeled, so on the flight home we’ll be using a leased plane. Last time it was a 747 from United. Now those planes have three classes, and I would love to be in international first, but those seats are reserved for Air Pacific elites. The upside is that business is in the upper deck and that is one of my favorite places to fly. You are on a huge plane but it feel much more exclusive up there, since you have only a few seats and a private galley and lavatory.

Anyway, we were in the nose of this plane and the seats reclined pretty far so both Andrea and I got some sleep. They had individual screens at each seat showing movies, but it wasn’t on demand so you had to sort of wait for it to come around. I watched the beginning of “Prometheus” while we had a light supper (not exactly dinner entertainment) but chose sleep over watching the rest of it. When I did wake I got through all but the last few minutes of “Men in Black 3” before they turned it off for landing (grrr).

The last time we came to Fiji it was actually light when we arrived, but this time the sun had yet to come up (it was 5am after all). But by the time we made it through immigration and got our bags the sky was lightening in the east.

We were met by Henry, who remembered us from 2008. To get to Navini, Henry drives us from the airport to the marina, where we get on a boat for about a 30 minute ride to the island.

The first time we came, they backed the boat right up to the shore and we waded out. This time we moored about 100m offshore and they sent in a small boat to ferry us to the island. Not sure if that was to protect the reef or what.

Navini Island is only six acres, with ten rooms (or bure’s) for guests. We always stay in a “premiere” bure, their smallest, and it contains a queen bed as well as a twin. While some of the bure’s have multiple rooms, this still puts the maximum number of guests at something like 40, and when we’ve been there it’s never come close to that. This time three other couples were on the island with us, all from Australia (which is considerably closer to Fiji than the US), but through attrition we ended up with just one other couple by the end of our trip. This makes Navini feel very much like your own private island.

Land in Fiji is controlled mainly by hereditary tribal chiefs who lease out the land. The ex-pat Australian who wanted to settle on Navini tried to lease it as a private residence, but with tourism being one of the main revenue streams for the country he was asked to make it a resort instead (the island has 33 staff members). Since his goal was not to make money with the resort but just to live there, Navini does very little advertising. By the time we arrived in November they had already made enough for the year and so there is little push to commercialize the island further. Contrast this with nearby Beachcomber Island, a backpacker resort that houses 200+ plump and sunburned Aussies on a similar-sized island, and you can see why we like Navini so much.

Time runs differently on the island. We mark our days not by clocks but by the sun and the sound of the lali drum. A lali drum is made from a hollowed out log, and they play it to announce that food is ready: 8am for breakfast, 1pm for lunch and 7pm for dinner.

As we arrived a little after 7am, we had some time to settle in before breakfast. They put us in bure 9 (last time we were in 7). This had advantages and disadvantages. The premiere bures are duplexes – you share a wall with another premiere bure. Landscaping and building design makes each one feel very private, and both times we were there they didn’t book anyone in the adjacent room. Bures 9 and 10 are closest to the main buildings (the dining hall and office) but that also places them close to the generator.

All power on the island comes from a big diesel generator. They have enclosed it so that you don’t really notice the sound, but in the rare times when the sea is perfectly calm and quiet, you can hear it from bure 9. Last time we were in bure 7 and I can’t remember hearing it at all. The upside is that it is a short walk to the main area of the island.

The most remote bure is bure 6, which is next to the “day room”. This is a room where arriving passengers can wait for their room to be available should they arrive early and the island is booked. I think next time I’ll request it, but the couple that was staying there this trip mentioned that it was a dark walk back (the path to our bure was fairly well lit) and sometimes they manage to step on a crab or two.

At 8am we heard the drum and went to breakfast. Lots of fruit, fresh squeezed juice, and your choice of a hot meal or cereal. Even though the food is good, combined with its healthy nature and physical activity I believe I lost a little weight on this part of the trip.

At breakfast you choose what to eat for lunch, and at lunch you choose your dinner. Navini is not an all-inclusive resort but since it is so remote you are required to also purchase a meal plan (either 2 or 3 meals a day). If you simply include the meal in the lodging price it is pretty close to being all-inclusive, but alcoholic drinks are extra (as is in the in-room minibar). You literally can order as much food as you want, including multiple main courses, and it is included in the meal price.

After breakfast there is always a morning activity that starts at 9:30am. On Tuesday, the day we arrived, the trip was fishing, one of my favorites. Even though we were still pretty tired, we couldn’t pass this up (they tend to do different trips for every day of the week and I didn’t want to miss the one opportunity I might have to fish).

Andrea, myself and one of the Aussies named Greg met up with Joe on the boat and we headed out. On the way to the reef (the reef around Navini is protected so you can’t fish there) we trolled and managed to catch a nice Spanish mackerel. Joe put out two rigs, a standard trolling rod with a lure and a hand line with a very simple white “spoon” lure with two hooks. About a meter or so up from the lure was a wedge-shaped piece of wood connected to the line. You feed the line out as the boat is moving slowly and tie it off to one of the posts near the back of the boat.

The wood causes the lure to run below the surface, but when a fish gets on the additional pull backward causes the wood to skate across the top of the water. You can easily see this, so you stop the boat and pull in the line. We caught the first fish pretty quickly, and shortly after that we got another strike, but the second one managed to get off before it could be landed. Then … nothing.

We got to the fishing site and started dropping hand lines over the side. This is as simple as it gets: bait is placed on a hook, above the hook is a lead sinker, and then the line is wound around a plastic spool. You feed line off this spool until you can feel the bottom, then you pull up a little and wait.

The last time we tried this I got skunked, and this time was no different. Andrea and Greg, however, managed to catch several perch, each about the size of my hand or a little bigger.

On the way back we trolled some more and had much better luck. The rod hooked a fish called a trevally, and the hand line brought in two more Spanish mackerel, each bigger than the last.

We got back in time for a quick swim before lunch, and at lunch we noticed that fish was an option for dinner – the mackerel that we had caught earlier.

I’d like to say that I spent the afternoon swimming and playing on the island, but after lunch I simply crashed on the bed and listened to the surf. Andrea read some more of her book before joining me.

We awoke to the sound of the lali drum signaling dinner.

Dinner was nice, especially since we knew how fresh the fish was. The other couples on the island were Arnaud and Jane Dilment from Sidney, Greg and Diana from Melbourne and John and Lisa, also from Melbourne.

We mentioned that we were going to Vanuatu next, Arnaud and Jane asked where we were staying. When I told them about Moyyan House it turns out that they had stayed there as well. This boded well since it meant we shared similar tastes in lodging.

Despite the afternoon nap, both Andrea and I were still wiped so we crashed.

On Wednesday the trip was to visit a native village. While I’m pretty big on the history and culture of the countries I visit, I have little desire to visit “natural” villages that cater to tourists. Fiji is still a pretty poor country. Outside of tourism the next biggest industry is cane sugar, and we could see and smell the burning of the cane fields after harvest. Greg and Diane went, but they didn’t really care for the trip. After paying a few dollars per person to the chief, you see some half-hearted dancing and then are asked to buy some shell necklaces or other knick-knacks. Not my cup of tea.

Instead, Andrea went diving off the reef. She was able to get a dive company to come up and bring tanks, weights and a dive master to go with her. They did two dives, and she was surprised to find that even at 75 feet down the water temperature was 81F. The first dive was somewhat of a disappointment, since a lot of the reef seemed to have died, but the second dive was closer to Navini and she really enjoyed that.

Her dive partner was a bit of a character – at one time he picked up a giant sea slug and held it like a baby.

That afternoon, Andrea and I decided to explore the reef at Navini. I was a proud of the fact that I spent over 45 minutes in water over my head without getting too nervous. Only two things bothered me. First, I think my mask was on too tight and it started to give me a headache, and second we went out at low tide. The north side of the island is the best part of the reef, but at low tide the water isn’t much deeper than a foot or two near the shore. Thus when you are snorkeling out, especially if you are male, you might have reasonable worry that … bits … might happen to snag on the coral.

Not a good thought.

On Thursday, we woke early and walked around the island looking for shells. You have to do this early, since every morning the staff rakes the beach to remove seaweed, shells and coral so we tourists don’t cut our tender footsies.

The trip after breakfast was snorkeling at Honeymoon Island – something we had yet to do on previous trips.

Honeymoon Island is a private chunk of rock that is off limits to visitors, but the reef around it features amazing coral. You can swim as long as you don’t get on the island itself. This time it was Greg and Diane along with Andrea and myself. The boat was driven by Tueta.

As scared as I am of the water, I was the last one in, and I’m afraid that as soon as I got in and looked down at the bottom, some 10m below me, I immediately jumped back into the boat (even that is an oversimplification, as it was more like I had a death grip on the boat until Tueta lowered the ladder so I could get back on). I was feeling pretty upset with myself, but Tueta was very understanding and he sat and talked to me for a few minutes.

As I sat on the boat and thought about all we’d been through to get here, I somehow found the courage to say “screw it” and I hopped back into the water. I’m so glad I did because the reef was amazing.

I’m starting to analyze my fear, and it always starts with entering the water. There is something about the sound of my breathing through the snorkel that makes me think I can’t get enough air. If I can overcome those first five minutes or so, I’m fine.

And it didn’t hurt that every time I looked for the boat, Tueta had moved it so it was never more than 10m away. Gotta love the staff at Navini.

Anyway, after snorkeling we had another nice lunch. Arnaud and Jane had left us, so we were down to six.

For dinner that night the staff had planned something special – a lovo. This is a traditional Fijian barbecue. They heat wood and coconut husks down to coals, and then they place fish, chicken and pork into the hot coals, cover that with damp palm fronds, and let it cook for a couple of hours.

In order to dine, you had to wear your sulu – the traditional Fijian clothing that is basically a skirt. While it is the same piece of clothing for men and women (a rectangular piece of fabric), the women tie it differently (they show a little more leg). Since I am pretty anal-retentive, I went into the office after lunch and asked them to show me how to tie it. I’m glad I did, since I was the only one of the the guys not to lose his sulu during the evening, and since I was also the only guy who didn’t cheat and where shorts underneath I also didn’t offend anyone unintentionally. (grin)

The food was good, and included the trevally we had caught the day before. After dinner, they cleared the dining room and had us sit in chairs facing a mat. Much of the staff came out and joined us, and we participated in a traditional kava ceremony.

Kava is a popular drink in the South Pacific, and it is different in each area. Kava is made from the roots of a pepper plant, and when ground and soaked in water it makes a drink that looks, and some would say tastes, like muddy water. It has a narcotic effect, and it makes your tongue and lips numb. Fijian kava is very mild compared to, say, Vanuatu kava. I ended up drinking around five shells that night but got nothing but a little numb and a little sleepy (I slept very well that night). In Vanuatu, the same amount of kava would have put me in bed for two days (if what I read in this book is accurate).

Greg and Diane left that day, so it was down to the four of us. On Friday the trip was to visit some of the other resorts. We did this last time, and it wasn’t very fun. I think Navini just does it so you can see the difference between their island and the others.

Since we were down to four, we asked if we could do something different, and we settled on another reef fishing trip. Tueta took us out this time, and while we caught nothing trolling, I did manage to catch a couple of fish (yay me). In addition to the perch we normally caught, I brought up a small cod.

Friday night was our last night on Navini, and Andrea really wanted to go our night snorkeling. I really didn’t. She loves being in the water at night, since it is a totally different ecosystem than during the day, but I was worried about her safety alone.

During this week the man who founded the resort, Arthur, was in Australia. He would usually dine with us at night, so this trip Tiko sat in Arthur’s place. Before dinner I took him aside and asked if he could find one or two of the staff that would be willing to go with Andrea out to the reef. He wasn’t sure, since they don’t happen to have any gear (i.e. underwater lights) for that, but I mentioned that in our huge bag ‘o gear we had three powerful lights and he was able to round up two of the younger men who were eager to head out (although it was kind of funny – just when they were getting in the water one turned to Tiko and asked “Is this safe?” and he sort of dismissed them and said, “Sure, sure, go on”).

He told them to stay out for 30 minutes so we spent an hour watching their lights from the beach. When Andrea got back it was all she could talk about.

Apparently, the coral that looks kind of dead during the day feeds at night by extending out little “fans” into the water. The sea urchins are all extended out, and the fish are “sleepy” so they don’t run away (the boys who went out with Andrea teased a large puffer fish that was somewhat confused by the lights – although it never “puffed”), and she saw a number of rays (brown with blue spots).

The big excitement was that they were able to get right next to a sea turtle before it slowly swam away.

It was the highlight of the week for her.

We left on Saturday morning, and once again it was hard to say goodbye. The trip back was the reverse of the trip out – a boat ride to the marina and then a van trip with Henry to the airport.

While American Airlines has a partnership with Air Pacific, my elite status does me no good there, so we ended up in the very back row of the 737, in upright seats that didn’t recline. The ticket was pretty pricey for the length of the flight, about 90 minutes, and I couldn’t see spending another US$1000 for Tabua class (their business class where we sat on the way out) so coach it was.

We arrived in Port Vila, where I was able to finally stretch my legs. I couldn’t help but think that Jeff Probst, the host of the Survivor TV series in the US, did the same walk I did across the tarmac to the arrivals hall (the Vanuatu episode was filmed just outside of Vila).

Now I should mention that since leaving LA we had not experienced air conditioning. Neither the airport at Nadi nor the one at Port Vila were very cool, since the only thing moving air were ceiling fans, and near immigration even those weren’t running. We got through passport control and collected our bags without incident, and then had to decide what to do next. There were no boards or monitors with flight information, and the whole Air Vanuatu desk was empty.

So we sat in the heat and read, until about an hour later I saw someone at the desk. I believe they were actually part of the cleaning crew, but in any case I went over and ask them about the next flight to Santo.

Turns out we were in the wrong terminal, so we rolled our bags over the to “domestic” terminal one building over, which was even more crowded and hot. I was able to confirm that we were in the right place, but we had to kill about five hours until our flight.

I suggested that we should probably just take a cab into town, but that left the question of what to do with our bags, and by the time we could check in it would have been cutting it a little close to take a side trip, so we just hung out.

Checking the bags was interesting. Not only did they weight the bags, they weighed each of us as well. That’s how I knew that I probably lost a little weight on Navini, since I was about 185 fully clothed and I was 181 naked before we left. Andrea wouldn’t let me see her weight.

The plane was called a Twin Otter and could seat 20 people. We had 12 on the flight so I was able to spread out a little (we were in the first row so Andrea stayed there and I moved one row back). The boarding process was simple – hand in your ticket and your 200 Vatu “exit tax” card and walk to the plane. No metal detectors, no groping, no fussing over liquids (the lady next to me brought on a quart-sized bottle of hand lotion) – just get in the plane. There was no door to the cockpit, no safety lecture (although I did notice everyone had their seat belt on), just sit down, taxi and take off.

The flight was pretty smooth (for which I am thankful). The water there was so blue that I got a weird sense of inversion, because looking down through the clouds into the water was almost the same as looking up through the clouds to the sky.

We climbed to 10,000 feet (the cabin wasn’t pressurized) and cruised there for awhile before landing on Santo.

Luganville, the main town on the island of Espiritu Santo, features a relatively new airport that boasts a direct flight (on a jet) to Brisbane. While I’m sure that flight does it differently, we simply landed, slowed down, and then the pilot drove across a grassy field to the terminal (cutting off about five minutes of taxi time).

It was awesome.

We gathered our bags and met our driver, who took us out to our home for the second week – Moyyan House by the Sea.

Moyyan consists of five “fares” – similar to the bure’s in Fiji, but each one is free standing. There is a main building with a kitchen, bar and dining area, and the fare closest to that houses a spa.

We were in fare number 5, which was the last one down the beach. The beach itself is in a small bay, and you can see a couple of islands nearby. The feeling is much different than Navini, since that was a small island and Santo is large enough to have been once mistaken for Australia (not that it is anywhere close to being that big, it is still the largest island in Vanuatu). There are reefs right off the shore, but the water clarity is not nearly as nice as Fiji, with about ten feet of visibility. Still pretty cool to snorkel around, but without the majesty of what we had become accustomed to seeing.

Our fare, however, was right on the water, about 4m away at high tide, and it was built on top of one of the large trees that grow along the coast. It’s nice – I’d put it slightly up market from our bure at Navini, and after we settled in there wasn’t much time left for anything but dinner.

Moyyan is known for its cooking, but while I was never disappointed I never really got excited, either. They changed management between the time I booked last January and now, and I think the food has suffered. It’s not like there are many options, however, so we had a nice meal and went to bed.

I wanted to go into Luganville and look around, and since we mainly came to Vanuatu so that Andrea could dive, the first order of business was booking some dive trips and they run out of the town. Unfortunately, Luganville is basically completely shut on Sundays, so we stayed around the hotel.

Around lunch we borrowed some bicycles and pedaled about 4 miles down the East Coast Road to another resort called Oyster Island. They had an acclaimed Sunday buffet, so we wanted to try it. To get to the resort you had to ride down a potholed dirt road to a dock, and then you take a little wooden ferry to the island itself.

Oyster has 11 fares and seemed to be a bit more crowded than Moyyan. The food was good (Vanuatu is known for its beef and we saw a lot of contented cows grazing on grass on our bike ride) and since neither of us were that eager to ride back in the heat any time soon, we sat around and watched the people. There were several large groups of tourists (all Australian I believe) and they seemed to be having a decent time.

On the ride back I stopped by a roadside stand and bought a bag of fruit that I can’t seem to find on the Internet and I could never pronounce its name. It looks sort of like an apple and tastes sort of like a pear, with a large pit in the middle that looks like a peach.

On Monday we rode into town in the Moyyan minivan. They ferry townspeople who work at the resort back and forth several times a day.

We located Allen Power’s dive tour shop, and one of his men, Tony, showed us out to a veranda while Andrea asked a bunch of questions about diving.

She dives in a program called PADI (there are others but it is the largest worldwide) and they provide training certifications for divers. For example, the “open water” certification qualifies her to dive down 10m, her “advanced open water” gets her to 30m, etc. She wanted to go home with at least one more certification, and they settled on “deep” diving. This consists of four dives over two days to learn about diving at depth, and things like nitrogen narcosis that can affect you when you are that deep. She scheduled a couple of dives for Tuesday and then we left to explore Luganville.

I can sum it up with “ain’t much there”. This is a third world country after all, and Luganville is the smallest “big town” near which we’ve stayed. I bought a watermelon at the market and we grabbed a taxi back to the hotel.

We had lunch and then had time to do a tour, so we decided to take a canoe up the river to one of Vanuatu’s famous “blue holes”.

If you will remember my trip to Oregon earlier this year, Kathy took me up to the “blue pool” outside of Eugene. This is the same thing. In volcanic areas the lava will sometimes completely cover a river. Over time the water will find its way out, often filtered and very clear. Minerals in the water cause it to diffract blue light, which give is a funky blue color.

Our trip was to the Matevulu Blue Hole. We actually passed the river on our way to Oyster Island on Sunday, but this time instead of bikes we took a van. Our driver dropped us off next to this extremely clear river, and we climbed into a dugout outrigger canoe and were paddled by a local up the river to the blue hole.

It was pretty cool.

They built a small dock next to the pool, so we got out and swam for about an hour before heading back down and back in the van.

On Tuesday I sat around, slept and read, while Andrea went diving. I think we both had a great time. The day started at 6am, since she needed to have an early breakfast in order to make the 7am van trip into town.

Our phones don’t seem to work here. I get no signal at the resort, anyway, so the plan was that she would be back by 1pm if she was diving a half day and we’d have lunch, but if she wasn’t back I’d grab lunch on my own. She showed up about 4pm with a huge grin on her face.

She did two dives on the USS Coolidge, a ship that sank due to hitting a friendly mine in World War II. While in deep water, you can reach it from the shore, so her and Jim, her dive instructor, simply swam out and then went down.

In PADI certifications you can only do two training dives a day. The two they did were for her deep diving certification, and she was happy to find that she doesn’t suffer from nitrogen narcosis. But being the fanatic she is, they did a third “fun” dive at Million Dollar Point. When the US Navy pulled out of Vanuatu, they had a bunch of equipment that didn’t make sense to move. They offered it to the Vanuatu government for something like 20 cents on the ton, but the Ni-Van knew that they really couldn’t do anything with it, so they held out for a better price.

Little did they know the Navy would just dump it all in the sea.

That night we tried to plan the rest of the week. She had tentatively scheduled Thursday for the final two dives in her certification, but since she was having so much fun I suggested that she go ahead and dive on Wednesday as well.

We had planned to do Millennium Cave, but the final bit of that tour is an inner tube ride on an underground river. Unfortunately, the weather had turned (there was a tropical depression threatening to become a cyclone nearby) and we’d had a lot of rain. This tends to close the Cave. Plus, there was a cruise ship scheduled on Wednesday that promised to drop 3000-4000 people on the island and I had no desire to brave those crowds.

Since rain has little impact on diving, she went ahead and scheduled a couple of dives Wednesday morning. I wanted to go sport fishing, but they were predicting huge swells so the captain wasn’t going out that day (it turned out that from my vantage point the water was a smooth as glass). So I had an enjoyable day reading while Andrea did three more dives.

The last one was at night. There is a species of fish in Vanuatu that has photo-luminescent pouches under their eyes. They are called flashlight fish, and to see them Andrea did a dive shortly after dusk. They went down into a cargo hold and she was told to stay very still. Soon, the fish came out and she said that it looked like the night sky.

Cool.

She did one more dive on Thursday. Since the Coolidge was once a luxury liner, it has things like chandeliers. One of the more famous items is a statue known simply as “The Lady”. They decided to dive down so that Andrea could see her. The trick was, she’s at 157 feet.

Now PADI’s limit for recreational diving is 130 feet or so: 40 meters. She was past that, but didn’t seem to have any issues. Now she wants to get certified in technical (“tech”) diving.

Not me.

Since you can’t dive that deep and fly within 24 hours, she only did the one dive that day. For our final afternoon we decided to visit one of the most photographed place in Vanuatu, Champagne Beach.

Andrea managed to make a friend in a taxi driver named Cliff, so we hired him to take us there for less than an official tour would cost.

We spent the our last night on Santo just hanging out. I think it was worth going all the way there.

For us to get home, we have to fly from Port Vila back to Fiji. Unfortunately, there was no way for us to get there from Santo in time to make our flight on Saturday, so we needed to lay over in Vila. The flight back was much like the flight out – small, unpressurized plane – but this time the captain did keep it on the pavement.

Vila is an interesting place. It was a colonial town under both the French and English, and it was by far the largest “city” we had seen on the trip. We stayed at a quaint little place called “Chantilly’s on the Bay“. This was set up like a motel, and for the first time on the trip we got a room with air conditioning. We checked in and went looking for a place to eat.

My guide book suggested a restaurant called “Harbour View Chinese” so we hiked a short ways up a hill to the place. We wanted to sit inside (which was also air conditioned) but we really didn’t have an option since the entire outside balcony was occupied by about 40 people at one long table.

A few of the men at the head of the table seemed rather important, so I asked our waiter who they were. It turns out it was the newly elected Prime Minister and his staff. So, yes, I went to Vanuatu and had lunch with the Prime Minister. We were at separate tables and didn’t talk, but still.

The rest of the day was pretty mellow. We wandered around Vila and did some Christmas shopping. It seemed weird because a) it was really hot, and b) although it was Thanksgiving back home, we didn’t see any turkey at all (grin). I did watch a bunch of the locals play pétanque, a game I only knew about through an old Cosby show episode, while Andrea looked at scarves.

We ate dinner at the hotel and went to bed, but not before watching an episode of “The Walking Dead” with Chinese subtitles.

Saturday began our long trip back home. It would take nearly 40 hours.

The first stop was to head back to Nadi Airport in Fiji. We had a seven hour layover there and I had no desire to spend it in the airport, so we hired Henry, the Navini Island driver, to show us around a bit. We had checked our luggage through to RDU so we only had a couple of backpacks to deal with, and that made it easier.

The last time we were in Nadi Town I didn’t remember there being much to see, and that part hadn’t changed. Henry took us to an Indian temple, so we wandered around that for awhile before heading back into town to visit the best gift shop probably in the whole country. We didn’t find anything to add to our collection, so we went out to a high end resort that was having a boat show. The boat from Navini was actually in it as the vendor didn’t have another example to display, but by the time we got there, things were shutting down (5pm is pretty much the end of Saturday in Fiji). We wandered around a bit and then just had Henry drive us to a couple of interesting places. We ended up at an Indian restaurant and we invited Henry to join us. We listened to a bad band and ate wonderful food.

Back at the airport we got through immigration and went to the lounge. It was much nicer than the last time we were in Fiji, so that made the last hour or so pleasant. As we went to board the plane, my name was called out over the loud speaker. Turns out I was on the “naughty” list and had to endure a patdown before boarding. It wasn’t much different than what the TSA ditches out, and pretty soon I met up with Andrea in the plane.

Air Pacific only has two big planes, both 747s. One is being refurbished, so we were on a leased euroAtlantic 777. The seat configuration in business was two-three-two and we happened to be in the middle (or at least I was). I wasn’t too happy about this until it was discovered that both Andrea’s seat as well as the one for the guy on my right were broken, then I was feeling a little better about my situation. The staff was Portuguese and young, and they took a rather slack approach to customer attention. I wasn’t too hungry, but I did want dessert, and so when they came to take our order I told them to just bring me that. It never came. Plus. I thought I could finally see the end of “Men in Black 3” but about halfway through the picture would go all fuzzy, then blank, and then it would start over. I watched it twice just to see if it was a one time glitch. It wasn’t.

In any case, we managed to get Andrea’s seat to a position where she could sleep and made it to LA without further incident. We used Andrea’s newly acquired Global Entry credentials to get through customs quickly, recheck our bags and head to the hotel.

We left NAN at 23:00 on Saturday and arrived at LAX at 13:00 on Saturday, which always weirds me out. Since you can’t get from the west coast to the east coast that late in the day, we had booked the red eye and had 11 hours or so to kill. I used a free night that Marriott had given me to get us a room at the Renaissance, so we went there to sleep and shower.

For dinner we walked to an In-N-Out Burger. Now usually I get a double-double, animal style, with well-done fries and a strawberry shake. But California came up with this stupid law that requires calorie counts to be displayed. It turns out that the shake I like so much had nearly as many calories as the burger:

Double Double: 670 calories
Fries: 395 calories
Shake: 590 calories

Total: 1655 calories

Since I was certain I’d lost a little weight on this trip, instead I got a hamburger, fries and a Diet Coke

Hamburger: 390 calories
Fries: 395 calories
Diet Coke: 0 calories

Total: 785 calories

or less than half. Go me.

The flight home was uneventful, with one exception. We flew from LAX to ORD, and while in Chicago we did buy some [Garrett’s popcorn][13]. It was on the flight to RDU that things took a turn for the worse.

We were in first class, and there was a kid in the seat behind me. Shortly after take off, I noticed this unpleasant smell, and it turned out he had thrown up. Luckily, he knew enough to use the bag (in all my years of flying that is the first time I’d ever seen that happen) but the smell just kept getting worse. It was so bad that the young lady seated next to him changed seats to a vacant one near the bulkhead.

I learned later from Andrea that he had taken his shoes off. Had I know that this was the cause of the smell I would have asked the attendant to make him put them back on, but at least it was the shortest flight of the trip.

And that’s it. Our bags arrived no worse for wear and Bob picked us up and drove us home. Not sure where the next big trip will be (we are thinking Egypt but are on a wait and see plan for that) but this one was a lot of fun.