Vanuatu in January

[Mantra]

Hi all!

We are starting to plan our first ever diving holiday. We got our OW in Bali, but it was the tail end of a much longer trip. We're wanting to plan a dive-centric month's long holiday for January next year. We'd like to get some good diving in, as well as some cultural activities and hiking etc.

We are thinking of maybe spending a month in Vanuatu in January 2013. I'm thinking we might stay at a dive resort or similar in the first week, backpack around for the next two, and then spend the last seven to ten days doing the Coolidge and Million Dollar point.

Can anyone help us with suggestions?

We have a modest but not shoestring budget.

What would you do? How would you spend the four weeks? What's your best Vanuatu tip?

Also - unfortunately January is the only month we can both take off. We're kinda used to doing Asia during the monsoon. We go each year, and Dec/January is the only time we can ever take off together. But monsoon makes some places much less doable than others. So what does cyclone season mean for Vanuatu exactly? Are we likely to be much disturbed by it?

Thanks!

 

[Heg]

Hi
I can't comment on Santo as we've never been up there, but there are some awesome dives to be done from Port Vila.and up around the Tranquility Island resort. We have been three times and always dive with Big Blue.

Vanuatu is not cheap. Groceries are very expensive, especially imported good like breakfast cereals and soft drinks. Fruit and veg can be bought quite cheaply in the local market. Eating out is around the same price as Brisbane restaurants. We usually try to stay in a place where we can self cater.

THe time of year you are going will be very hot and very humid. Just like Northern QLD, the cyclone season runs from End of Nov through to April. You are much more likely to get heavy rain and rough seas during this time, and obviously always the risk of a cyclone.
We went at the end of March one year and a cyclone was heading in on the day we flew out.

 

[clownfishsydney]

Very hot and sticky, big chance of a cyclone. Other than that, still a great place to visit. The food in Vila is no more expensive really than Australia.

In Vila Nautilus Scuba has accommodation which is very cheap. Centrally located to the town as well. Can cook yourself.

In Santo, there is cheapish accommodation. There have been some posts on here recently about diving with Aquamarine, worth searching for as it appears they have gone downhill.

See my web site pages on Vanuatu Michael McFadyen's Scuba Diving Web Site.

A brilliant place to visit, I have been to Vanuatu 10 times I think, every one enjoyable.

 

[Griffo]

For accommodation in Santo, I can't rave enough about "Deco Stop". Great hosts. Setup for divers. Top Food. Cheap as.
It is 5 mins walk out of town, but all the dive ops will pick you up on the way to the dive site.

A typical "Coolidge" diving day would consist of
- Breakfast
- Drive to Dive site
- Dive
- Get dropped off back at hotel
- each lunch
- Sleep for 2 hours
- get picked up
- Dive
- Get Dropped off
- Eat Dinner
- Sleep

Because of the depth, you are only doing two dives a day, and it's all on air so sleeping between dives is very popular
I'd also suggest that you go do the Millenium Cave Tour -> Millenium Cave Vanuatu Espiritu Santo
Wear your hard-sole dive booties, or an old pair of sneakers that you don't care about destroying. It's all mud and water, but an awesome day out. It takes longer than they say, and don't do it the day of your return flight out. They'll tell you it's fine, but will leave you rushing for the plane in mud-stained clothes. And it's physically taxing, I'd recommend it only if you are fit. There's lot of "climbing down a vertical cliff on a muddy bamboo ladder" so you need to have an adventurous spirit too. Oh and take a good dive torch and waterproof camera. A lanyard rather than clip would be of immense help

As for Dive Ops, my experience with Aquamarine last November was horrendous. I left and went to Alan Power. At the time, there was talk of the guides leaving. A colleague went in March, and said that nothing had changed except that yes, all the dive guides had left. However my LDS is going there shortly for a trip, and the owner claims that they have bought all new gear and cleaned up their act. So who knows, maybe Rian has clean it up after all - but at the time they weren't even inclined to fix a broken SPG on a Coolidge dive. There's also Santo Dive, and apparently a new one is starting up as well.

 

[g2]

There's great diving around Port Vila. I stayed on Hideaway Island and really enjoyed it.

I'll second the Deco Stop on Santo. For what you get, it's a good deal. Loads of fun.

A note about diving the Coolidge... as mentioned by OzGriffo, this is very advanced diving on a remote island. If you're newly certified you can still do it, but use caution. I rented equipment from Alan Powers and had it fail -- catastrophically -- on two deep dives. The same could be said for anywhere in Vanuatu (I returned equipment on Hideaway when I saw it failing.) I strongly recommend you take your own equipment to Vanuatu, or rent from a reputable dive shop at home. These islands are very remote, and equipment servicing is not always top-notch.

That said, go and have fun. BTW, my best experience on Vanuatu was not diving... It was visiting the volcano on Tanna. Yowsa! That was epic.

 

[Griffo]

There's great diving around Port Vila. I stayed on Hideaway Island and really enjoyed it.

I'll second the Deco Stop on Santo. For what you get, it's a good deal. Loads of fun.

A note about diving the Coolidge... as mentioned by OzGriffo, this is very advanced diving on a remote island. If you're newly certified you can still do it, but use caution. I rented equipment from Alan Powers and had it fail -- catastrophically -- on two deep dives. The same could be said for anywhere in Vanuatu (I returned equipment on Hideaway when I saw it failing.) I strongly recommend you take your own equipment to Vanuatu, or rent from a reputable dive shop at home. These islands are very remote, and equipment servicing is not always top-notch.

That said, go and have fun. BTW, my best experience on Vanuatu was not diving... It was visiting the volcano on Tanna. Yowsa! That was epic.

I saw on one dive a pony bottle save a life. Maybe two. Bad stuff happens to narked divers at 50m who don't check their SPG's. I know people bag them on scubaboard, but if you aren't diving twins, I'd seriously suggest an alternate air source. To put it in context, I turned one dive when I hit 100bar. At the deco shelf, I switched to a deco tank, and back to my main tank for the (very shallow) swim back. I left the water with the SPG reading 5 bar, and literally sucking to get air out of the tank. It's deep and takes a lot of air to "get out".
But it's also seriously fun diving, you just have to remember where you are and the fact that you are dealing with "island time" standards of safety.

 

[Mantra]

Thanks heaps for the input everyone! There has been some really useful information here and we have taken it all on board.

Great to know what the weather will be like, and the discussion on diving the Coolidge is appreciated. I do fear it might be a tad beyond my comfort zone - but if we are to do it, we will make sure we get the appropriate training and experience between now and then. It just seems like it would be a real shame to go to Vanuatu and not do it.

The deco stop looks like a great tip. It does seem like at the moment

Aquamarine is to be avoided and Alan Power would be a good bet IF we were to do the coolidge - his safety stop coral garden sounds awesome too

We would certainly take our own regs / computers at a minimum, and do what we can about our other gear.

You guys have been very generous with your tips - thanks so much! I will keep you posted.​

 

[Gabster]

I went to Vanuatu a few years ago (2007). Loved the Coolidge but some of it was challenging. Dived with Aquamarine (who were very good then but I understand as above that things have changed). They were very sensible and made you do the dives in a certain order (of increasing difficulty) to try and prevent people getting out of their depth. There were people who were fairly newly certified and coped fine but I'm pretty certain that I wouldn't have if I'd only had 10 dives under my belt at that point. Also, I worry that just because it was ok for them, doesn't mean that it's safe or sensible. However, there are some dives that would be fine, I'd just draw the line at going deep into the ship at 40-50m if you don't have superb buoyancy skills. With Aquamarine we dived on square navy profile tables (although pretty much everyone had a computer) which meant very conservative diving and stops. In fact, although I had a minimum of 30 mins deco to do on virtually every dive (and substantially more on some) I actually only had deco to do on my computer on one of those dives by the time we reached the stops. I agree with the previous poster - I dived on a single tank (which was a bit stupid really as I had taken twinning bands with me on the trip which would have been far more sensible !) and wish I at least had a pony bottle with me. I used some of the spare bottles left at the deco stops on a couple of occasions for the deeper dives but actually wish I had them with me. Although the diving was well organised (then) I don't think it's good practice to be reliant on gas left somewhere for you (I can't remember whether the guides were also diving on singles) in case you don't reach that far.

Because the dive times were set, we weren't necessarily diving at slack water so on a couple of occasions the current was pretty bad to get out to the site (which didn't help air consumption either !) although fine once you were in the wreck obviously. Diver to guide ratio was maximum 1:4 (but that was then).

I also stayed at the Deco Stop which was great. Beautiful infinity pool. Good food. Lovely people.

Hope it's great whatever you decide to do.

 

[Griffo]

I think the diver-guide ratio is still 1-4. I had 1-2, the cost was negligble and made it very intimate. As above, they took us down progressively deeper, which is why it's good to spend at least a week on it. The only person I saw in twins was a tourist, but the guides didn't seem to breath underwater considering how much air they came up with. And they had a long-hose.
For our deeper dives, they left tanks both on the bow of the ship, as well as on the shelf.