The Coral Isles – day seven

January 1, 2010 by · Leave a Comment 

I woke up at about 5:00, and could tell that I wasn’t going to get back to sleep any time soon, so I got up, grabbed the camera and headed topside.
Glad that I did, as it turned out to be a decent sunrise; a few scattered clouds on the horizon, but broken up enough for the sun to peak through.
However, shooting a sunrise (which requires a slower shutter and a tripod) from the deck of a moving vessel as you’re plowing along into a 20 knot headwind makes for a challenging assignment! Read more

The Coral Isles – day six

December 31, 2009 by · Leave a Comment 

As I wrote this, I am sitting back at my desktop in Sydney. Man, that went quick.
Today, we anchored at Wala, a really small island in the Vanuatu group, measuring somewhere around 1000 metres squared.
We had been advised that the snorkeling on offer both here, and at Champagne Bay (where we’ll be tomorrow), would be the best we’d experience on this trip. Hence our decision to buy some gear yesterday.
After wandering the local beach market place, and grabbing a few shots of the locals, I decided it was time to join Cath and Max in the water. Read more

The Coral Isles – day five

December 30, 2009 by · Leave a Comment 

Port Vila, Vanuatu. I was here for 24 hours in 2006, on my way to Tanna. It was fun to revisit the place, and to see some of the changes which have occurred since.
Prior to embarking on this voyage, Cath had done some research on the web as to how best handle tours of these various ports. The consensus had been not to book your onshore activities through the ship, as you end up paying around 2.5 to 3 times the face value of the activity in question, even if it only involved getting a local guide to show you around. Read more