So here’s the story of our recent trip to Vanuatu.  I had not planned to be on this trip at all.  I got an email one week before the plane was to take off saying that a spot was open.  In a few words, I was able to make it happen.  I watched the second Twilight movie on the flight to Port Vila.  It was, um, awesome.

Over the next week, we dived seamounts, active volcanoes, reef edges and all sorts in between.  To describe the conditions in one word, it would be current.  The new moon tides were big and we drifted some spots at 4-5 knots.  Getting the currents right on the seamounts was very frustrating, and I can only remember two times when we got it right, but both times I was able to put a shaft in a dogtooth.

We finally found a point with a slow, but steady current and great drop-offs from about 10 to 25 meters.  We saw doggies on every drift and shot a good few of them, one of which was Rambo’s 36kg model he got at 10 meters.

That was one part of the trip that I really liked.  We stayed in some bungalows owned by the chief that were right in the heart of the village.  Every fish we shot went to the folks in “town”, which meant we got to hang out with the locals quite a bit.  It was great swapping stories with them and horseplaying with the kids.  The food was awesome too and the local ladies cooked up a storm for us after a day’s diving.