Snorkelling Vanuatu and Isle of Pines

In the previous post I mentioned my honeymoon on Carnival Cruises - Carnival Spirit to be specific. On this 11 night cruise we were privileged enough to visit 5 very beautiful islands in the South Pacific.

Each and every one of these destinations had fantastic snorkelling - a particular favorite past time of mine. The waters were completely clear, clean (something us Sydney folk aren't used to) as well as abundant with fish.

Our first island was the Isle of Pines - an island belonging to French Polynesia in New Caledonia.

What I loved about this place was that it forms just a small part of the New Caledonia Barrier Reef - the second biggest barrier reef in the world. Second only to Australia's Great Barrier Reef.

When arriving onto the Isle of Pines you can walk just a short way up from the wharf to a lagoon just opposite. This here has plenty of fish itself particularly around the sacred rock.

P.S sacred means don't touch and definitely don't climb - the local people may throw rocks at you or even attack you. The sacred rock has significant meaning to the lives of the locals so please follow this one rule.

This spot here isn't the best spot for snorkelling the Isle of Pines however. You'll want to head on a bus tour (can be organised by the Cruise) to a placed named 'The Natural Aquarium'.

The Natural Aquarium is a protected area which mean the fish are far more abundant and the variety of fish is wide and varied.

The Natural Aquarium - Isle of Pines

Next on the list was Mystery Island a small (tiny in fact) and flat island that no one actually lives on. The water here matches pictures of paradise or perhaps even heaven. The water was also incredibly warm.

Here the beaches were taken up by the 2,500 guests on the Carnival Cruise so unfortunately the amount of people in the water scared off some of the fish. I didn't think I would actually see any.

That was until I found a lone mass of coral which had tonnes of fish hiding inside. None of the other snorkelers knew it was there and so the fish were quite active having only me around.

Mystery Island

Santos and Port Vila unfortunately I missed out on snorkelling however Ih ave snorkeled and scuba dived Port Vila on a previous trip. If you want the best of the best diving and snorkelling here you will want to head to Hideaway Island about 20 minutes from the towns centre.

Lastly we had Wala another small island however this time a village of around 300 people lived there. Basically it was just a long stretch of beach with jungle just beyond the sand.

As this was the last island on the trip I was admittingly exhausted however I wanted to see what the snorkelling was like here... and I wasn't dissapointed.

Here there hundreds, maybe thousands of different fish and many different species too. One of the highlights here though was the vibrant colours of the reef as well as the large colonies of clown fish (you may know these fish as Nemo).

Clown Fish - Wala

Wala was probably my favourite snorkelling due to the large number of fish and the vareity of species however each and every place had its own merits.

If you are ever heading to the South Pacific then I suggest you go snorkelling. You never know where and when will be the best spot.

In future posts I'll go through what we got up to in both Santo and Port Vila. These adventures were more active and extreme adventures.

Want to try a Snorkelling Adventure yourself? Click Here.

Daniel Hardie
www.nothingbutadventure.com.au