5 Things To Enjoy in Espiritu Santo, Vanuatu

Espiritu Santo is the largest island in the South Pacific archipelago of Vanuatu. Packed with natural beauty, Santo is home to stunning beaches, inviting blue swimming holes and a surprisingly high number of cows.

Espiritu Santo is the largest of the 83 islands in Vanuatu, and one of the country’s most visited. Better known as Santo by locals, the island is abundant with jaw-dropping natural beauty. Postcard-perfect white-sand beaches give way to world-class dive sites, while inland coconut groves and rainforests are studded with freshwater blue holes.

# Sink your toes in the sand of Champagne Beach

Repeatedly voted one of the world’s best beaches, this palm tree-fringed paradise near the village of Hog Harbour is perfection personified. Turtles swim off shore in the shallows, where the water is so clear it could be mistaken for a swimming pool.

Lea Faccarello of the Vanuatu Tourism Office says, “Champagne Beach has something no other beach does. Along with sugary white sand, electric-blue water and a rainforest backdrop, Champagne Beach is the site of underwater volcanic activity, which causes the ocean to froth, fizzle and effervesce at low tide.

# Take a dip in Santo’s blue holes

Eastern Espiritu Santo is home to more blue holes than any other place in the world. The largest and most impressive of Santo’s swimming holes is Matevulu. Fresh water filters up to the surface through layers of limestone and coral, turning it a mesmerising shade of blue. The best way to take a dip is to fly in using one of the rope swings, or swim across to climb the giant banyan tree for a more adrenaline-pumping leap.

# Snorkel over World War II relics at Million Dollar Point

During World War II, Vanuatu was the site of the biggest US military base in the South Pacific and many American troops were stationed on Espiritu Santo. When the war ended, the Americans dumped all their surplus supplies into the ocean. The site got its name from the estimated million dollars worth of goods, including military tanks, guns and jeeps, that were discarded underwater. Today the area is a thriving reef that snorkelers and scuba divers can enjoy.

# Dive the SS President Coolidge shipwreck

In 1942 the 200-metre (650-foot) SS President Coolidge sunk off the coast when it hit two American mines in Santo Harbour. The luxury liner, which had been converted to a troop ship during World War II, was carrying 5,000 men when it was hit. The captain managed to ground the ship on a reef, allowing the men to wade ashore before the vessel slid down a steep sandbank to its final resting place beneath the waves. Now scuba divers wade off the beach to explore the Coolidge and the chandeliers, trucks, guns and cannons that all went down with the ship.

# Browse locally made handicrafts and wooden carvings

Mama’s Handicraft and Souvenir Shop on Luganville’s Main Street is not only the best place on the island to buy traditional and locally made products, it is also somewhere you can watch the artists at work.