Vanuatu is not so different from the other places I’ve been--it is still recognizable as a developing island nation in the first stage of its independent history. But it feels a bit different, a little fresher, kinder, more receptive to inquiry. It’s a place that does not seem to be perpetually sabotaging itself. There was some secessionist weirdness involving some of the northern islands around independence in 1980, but in general the country seems to be doing well enough while still maintaining close ties with the island chain’s myriad traditional cultures. Around 80 percent of the Ni-Vanuatu, as people here are known, still live in traditional villages of less than 50 people.

This village life has survived despite some inspired colonial silliness that affected the island in the century prior to independence. Known then as the New Hebrides (bonus points and a Vanuatu souvenir to anyone who can say where the original Hebrides are without looking it up), the island chain attracted both English and French settlers. In 1906 they formed something called the Anglo-French Condominium, a joint colonial government. In other words, it was both French and English and every basic governmental service--immigration, money, education--was supplied and maintained independently by both countries. Separate and largely ineffectual, but equal, I suppose (except that the Ni-Vanuatu had almost no status at all).

It was a positively daffy arrangement that led to some surreal moments. In a chronicle of the history of divers in the region, one tells a story of arriving on a simple airstrip next to a small hut that was the airport for the island of Santo, where I am now. When he went in, there were two desks: one with a Frenchman in uniform behind it, one with an Englishman. Behind each was a flag on a pole and neither flag was allowed to be even an inch higher than the other. Instead of the Condominium, some called it the Pandemonium.

Neither England nor France had much interest in the New Hebrides in 1942 for obvious reasons. Two other countries were interested, though--the US and Japan. Japan wanted the island to cut off Australia, but the US headed off the Japanese sweep through the region and established, on Santo, its largest base in the Pacific outside of Hawaii. Among the many thousands of soldiers who were stationed here was the author James Michener. Much of the novel Tales of the South Pacific and the musical based on it were set here. There don’t seem to be many Americans here now, but the signs of American occupation are still around--quonset huts, downed planes, bunkers, air strips, amazing vintage rubbish heaps both underwater and on land, and, of course, the inescapable gravity (for divers, at least) of the SS President Coolidge. Unfortunately I can’t take underwater pictures and I honestly don’t think they would do much justice to the experience of diving this behemoth anyway. I’m actively researching the wreck and its history as a ship, a salvage site and a world-renowned dive location, so I’m not going to say too much about it now. But I can say it is terrifying, unforgettable and irresistible.

Some pics from around the island, some more tales of Vanuatu and the skinny on other dives here are all coming soon.