It had been over 2 months since Matt and I were in a “town.” We were in need of so many things that we had to make a day of it. We hired a taxi driver to pick us up at a large concrete dock off of Oyster Bay Lagoon in the island of Santo. Thank goodness he came in a pick up truck as we filled the back of it up! And off we go to Luganville, the largest town on Santo and frankly in the northern islands of Vanuatu.
We had 2 large bags and 3 small bags of rubbish (the small bags belonged to another boat). We had 7 jerry cans, 1 propane bottle and lots of empty bags to fill. It is a nice 40-minute drive from Oyster Bay lagoon to Luganville. The main town is all on one street located on the waterfront with many stores.
Luganville
Our first stop had to be the dump to get rid of our rubbish. We had heard that they recycle aluminum and tusker beer bottles but we later learned they only recycle the tusker bottles. if you notice all of the red bags in the dump it is because those are municipality bags. Locals buy these particular bags and then leave their bags in designated places on the street for free. We heard about this and bought yellow bags in Efate thinking we could use them all over Vanuatu. Ha! Not the case. Each island has their own color. If you do not have the proper color you cannot leave your bag in the designated spots on the street. Oh well, we tried. Efate has yellow bags and Santo has red bags.
Our next stop was Paradise Petroleum. We had (5) 20 liter and (2) 30 liter jerry cans to fill with benzine (aka gasoline). We use gasoline for the dinghy and for our small portable generator. The big boat uses diesel. We had lots of cloudy days with no solar and had to use the generator a lot. Plus we were out exploring in the dinghy using up a lot of fuel. We filled up 157 liters and it cost $257 USD (192vt/liter). Hopefully, this gasoline will last us for 2.5-3 months.
We also refilled our propane tank which we use for cooking and the BBQ ($21USD). This should last us 4-5 months.
Next it was off to Digicel to get top up cards for our local SIM which I use to have internet access onshore. We hit the fresh market (lower right photo above), the butcher (just because), Santo Hardware, and the fairly well stocked LCM Grocery Store. The hardware store did not have a hose or machete that we wanted but we did buy some nice fishing lures.
Will it All Fit?
We were on a mission and were in and out of every store relatively fast. By 11:45am we were heading back to Oyster Bay Lagoon. I have to say that I am still impressed with all that we did in such a short amount of time. We stuffed it all in the back of the truck and prayed it would all fit in the dinghy.
- 7 Bags of groceries
- 3 cases of beer
- 7 jerry cans
- 1 propane tank
I guess after 7.5 years of doing this we have it down to an art….no problem with the fit and we got the dinghy to plane! We unloaded it onto the boat and admired our stash.
An expensive day for sure, but this will hold us over for several months.
Our blog posts run 10-12 weeks behind actual live events. We went to Luganville on 7 August 2024. Did you read about our trip to a private island and resort in our last blog?