Today's shore excursion is to Champagne Bay which is situated on the East coast of Vanuatu's largest island, Espiritu Santo. This is Spanish for "Holy Spirit" and was first sighted by Europeans in 1606 when the Portuguese navigator Pedro Fernandez de Quiros landed at Big Bay west of Champagne Bay. The beach has fine white sand, and this fringes forests and mountains. 200 residents live in this bay and today they were all out flogging their wares. $2 for a photo with a snake, lizard or turtle, the usual sarongs, shirts and woven products as well as food such as banana, pineapple, passion fruit, coconut, mango, pawpaw, dried banana chips, dried tapioca chips, and a local nut that we used to eat in PNG which we called Gallup nuts. The market area was set up in
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