Day 61 was another early start. We were scheduled for a 7:30 am flight from Vila to the island of Espiritu Santo — shortened to Santo among locals, so we had to leave the Fatumaru Lodge by 6 am. We ate a quick bite to eat that the Fatumaru lodge had kindly given us the night before, and headed to the airport.

I was surprisingly anxious.  There were many ways this day could go wrong. To start, the airline, Air Vanuatu, had not filled me with confidence. They had already changed our flights on us, shifting them an entire day.  Fortunately, I’d known this might happen. In planning the trip, I’d read in a guidebook that it would be a good idea to leave some flex time around our internal flights because flights might be changed on short notice. As a result, our initial plan was to spend one night in Vila, seven nights in Santo, and then one night in Vila at the end, giving us a day on either side of our Air Vanuatu flights just in case. Then in July, Air Vanuatu emailed me saying that our flights had been shifted by an entire day, so that we had two nights in Vila, and no margin of error for our last day in Vanuatu. I worried that there were other burrs in the wool that hadn’t yet emerged.

I was also worried about the weight of our luggage. Air Vanuatu has strict weight limits for checked luggage (10 kg), giving us a total weight for Team Hubbard of 40 kg. We were already close to that mark when we arrived, and we’d bought some small things in Vila the day before. We tried to wear our heavier clothes. I went to the airport wearing two jackets with my water shoes stuffed in the pockets.  When we checked in we learned that we’d made the cutoff by the skin of our teeth — our total came in at 39.9 kg.

As we waited for our plane to depart, my mind drifted to other ways that this plan could unravel. To start, we don’t know anyone who has been to Santo. Literally zero people. Guide books in the US give the island minimal discussion.  That means that there was a lot riding on my internet research, and the internet is not exactly a font of truth. Plus, we’d been a little surprised by the infrastructure scars left by the December 2024 earthquake in Vila, and Santo was a less developed island. Would the infrastructure in Santo be too minimal?

And then there was our accomodations – the Turtlebay Lodge. After our plumbing problems in Vila I was worried that our trip even further off the beaten track would backfire. And we would be here for a week, so just gritting our teeth wouldn’t work. Also, the Turtlebay was where we’d be doing our scuba training.  Again, given the infrastructure concerns we’d seen in Vila, I was worried about the quality of the gear and instruction.  While I had verified that the dive shop was recognized by PADI (the global gold standard for diving associations), we are not legit divers.  We would need more than the minimum level of support. A lot was riding on this place working out.

But the plan was in motion. Like a shark, Team Hubbard had to keep moving forward. We headed out to the plane, another medium-sized ATR 72 turboprop.

It was a quick flight, lasting only 45 minutes. We passed over big islands like Malekula, where I knew there was some human development but I couldn’t see it. I saw in the distance the active volcano of Ambrym Island, though there fortunately was no eruption today.  I also got glimpses of Pentecost Island, which stuck me as a bit of a metaphorical bookend for our winding-down adventure. On Pentecost, men prove their bravery by jumping off bamboo towers with vines tied to their ankles to brake their falls. This ritual was part of the inspiration for modern bungy jumping, one of the major milestones that started our trip.

As we flew I also started to get a sense of our isolation. I didn’t see planes, contrails from previous flights, or even boats.  I saw ocean, reefs, and turquoise water.  This will be one of the most remote place I have visited. We soon landed, deplaned, and walked to the terminal.

This airport was tiny. After we walked through the doors into the terminal, a worker rolled a large wooden box into the doorway. We then waited for our luggage to be dumped on the makeshift shelf.

We then walked into the the one-room terminal.

On the way, we saw a photograph of the airport from World War II, when the US military built the airstrip we’d just landed on.

Note the green “You Are Here” in the middle of the picture. Santo played a key role in WWII. It was the headquarters and primary staging ground for US forces in the Battle of Guadalcanal. During the course of the war, hundreds of thousands of soldiers passed through the extensive bases the US Navy constructed on the island. (The Navy Construction Battalion goes by the abbreviation CB or more cleverly for busy workers on South Pacific Islands — “Seabees.”) James Michener wrote the Pulitzer Prize winning novel “Tales of the South Pacific” while stationed on Santo based on his experiences and the stories he collected from other soldiers. The book was later loosely adapted into a musical — the Rodger and Hammerstein classic, “South Pacific.” Importantly for our purposes, the US military installations laid down by the Seabees still provide some of the basic infrastructure for the island, including the main airstrip and some of the roads.

With our luggage in hand, we found the driver that the Turtlebay Lodge had arranged for us. We set off, driving first through Luganville, a chaotic small town of 18,000 and the second biggest city in the country. After about an hour, we reached the Turtlebay Lodge, where we met Vicki and Mick, the charming couple that run the place. They’re both from the UK and are expert divers with decades of experience. I was delighted to learn that Mick would be training us to dive later that day. We also met Ralph, Mick and Vicky’s mischievous dog.

At this point, Team Hubbard’s energy started to dip. We hadn’t really eaten before our early flight, and we had a long day of scuba training in the pool ahead of us. We dropped our luggage in the reception area and headed into the lodge’s wonderful, open-air, lagoon-side restaurant. We had a great brunch of eggs, toast, yoghurt, and fruit.

Refueled, we headed to our rooms.  We had two adjoining rooms with shutters to let in the constant sea breezes.  Our rooms shared a covered porch that looked out towards waves breaking on coral rocks. 

I unclenched. This was all working out better than I could have reasonably hoped. There’d been no mishaps in our air travel. The lodge beautiful. The food was great. The staff was friendly and warm. Mick was equal parts diving expert and affable comedian. And they had a dog.

We quickly threw on our swimsuits and sunscreen and headed to the dive center. There, we met the rest of the training crew, Yvanah and George. We didn’t find out until later, but Mick and Vicki have been working to help Yvanah become something of a trailblazer in diving in Vanuatu. She’s the first ni-Vanuatu woman to become an Open Water Scuba Instructor. Indeed, Yvanah is something of a real-life Moana. She was working at Turtlebay as general staff, and Mick and Vicki noticed that she was always drawn to the water when she was supposed to be doing other tasks. Mick and Vicki offered to let her try diving, and Yvanah was instantly hooked. She wanted to try to make a career of diving, and Turtlebay helped her to get scholarships for her training courses. Her family was concerned, thinking that perhaps Yvanah should have a more traditional role on the island. But the water called to Yvanah. She quickly moved up the training ladder, and in 2024 became a Divemaster, then an Assistant Instructor, and finally an Instructor. Apparently, the family’s worries were allayed when the Vanuatu national paper wrote an article about Yvanah. Who knows how far she’ll go.

Turtlebay is also working with George to become a Divemaster. Indeed, Mick told us that part of George’s training would be helping us in our certification. Turglebay also helped George to get a scholarship for his program. We didn’t know the details of the scholarships or the trailblazing when we met the crew. These details came out as we got to know everyone better. The more we learned, the luckier we felt to be working with such highly skilled and generous people. It warmed our hearts to hear of the efforts of Vicki and Mick to help local ni-Vanuatu pursue their diving passions.

But enough backstory. We had scuba to learn! We had a quick briefing on the gear. We’d all done our online courses, so we had a foundation to build from, and it was exciting to put the dry teachings into practice. With gear in hand we headed to the pool!

We spent the next five hours in the pool learning the basics of scuba under Mick’s watchful eye.

We took only one short break in the middle of training. It was a full day. We ended back at the restaurant.

Our first day in Santo at the Turtlebay Lodge was incredible. We went to bed to the sounds of gently breaking waves. We were tired but also excited to see what else Santo had to offer.

-Will