March 19th, 2025

We had a sea day yesterday and I did get to play Mah Jongg in the afternoon for about an hour. There was only 3 of us. Not sure what happened to the other Mah Jongg players but maybe there will be more next segment since all the people I have been playing with get off in Auckland.

We also had the Oceania club party last night for returning Oceania cruisers. We are surprised how many different nationalities are on board and not referring to the crew. There are 91 Canadians on board, 17 from the Netherlands and several from Switzerland. The United States passengers were still the majority at 342.

We also heard the story of a passenger that tripped and fell on an excursion in Suva, Fiji. Suva does not have a hospital, just a clinic and the passenger broke her wrist and it needed surgery so she had to be driven to the other side of the island where the hospital was and the boat would be docking the next day. Supposedly the passenger has travel insurance but since we are in a foreign country they did not take the insurance. The hospital required 5500 for the treatment and when they get home they can file to get reimbursed. The passenger got back on the boat post surgery and is walking around with a cast and sling. Too bad that the next several ports are all beach ports and not much else to do if you don’t do something water related.

The port today was not on the original itinerary. Another port in Vanuatu was but they had a recent earthquake that caused damage so the cruise line switched ports. Mystery Island is a very small island that no one lives on and the residents in the large neighboring island come over and keep the island clean and offer services such as snorkeling gear, boat rides, Hair braiding and massages.

We had no excursion so we did not rush out right away since we anchored at 7am. We also were able to watch live coverage of the space shuttle coming back to earth and were surprised how many times the announcer said “off the coast of Tallahassee”. We did not know we had a coast.

Mystery Island from the ship.

Mystery Island is a tender port. It does have an airport and during World War II was used as a landing strip for the allied forces. US troops built the runway for their Air Force in the 1940s as World War II raged through the South Pacific.The “mystery’ is said to have come from the fact that the airship is impossible to see from the sea. So it took awhile for the Japanese to figure out where all the planes were coming from.

You can walk around the whole island in about 20 minutes and there is beautiful landscaping along the clear path.

The manicured path around the island Like Fiji, Vanuatu embraces its cannibalism history

The water color was beautiful and lots of snorkeling and white sandy beaches. We debated going on shore since the next 3 ports are all beach ports but we decided to and ended up spending several hours walking around the island and snorkeling.

Colorful boats and beautiful water!

Walking around the island.

The locals would take you out in the boats snorkeling. They drop you off in the middle of the channel and then follow you back as the current takes you to shore.

The water was crystal clear and some of the fish were quite big.

As we walked around the island we would find spots to go in snorkeling. I kept looking for clown fish and finally on the last stop I found a group of them.

I do love the clown fish!!

We made it back to the ship around 2:30 and went up to the grill to get some lunch. Oceania has one of the best grill menus including burgers, fried fish sandwich, Rueben sandwich, paninis, cuban and impossible burgers.

We spent the rest of the afternoon reading and watching TV.

Next stop is Lifou, New Caledonia. Another new port for us.