Imagine a tiny island with pristine beaches, crystal-clear waters, and vibrant coral reefs. Mystery Island offers stunning natural beauty and smiling locals. Whether by cruise ship, boat, or plane, this paradise won’t disappoint.
Latitude: 20° 14.8986’ S
Longitude: 169° 46.4892’ E
Mystery Island, Vanuatu
Wow! Just wow! What a beautiful little place on Earth this is. Imagine a tiny island 200 meters wide and barely 1 kilometre long, with white sandy beaches, pristine crystal-clear blue water, palm trees, little crabs chilling in the shade, smiling and happy locals waving, coral reefs teeming with fish and turtles. The moment you step foot on this gorgeous Mystery Island, your breath is taken away by the natural beauty. And then you turn around and there are another 2000 tourists queuing to get a picture taken on the swings, for a cocktail, to hire some snorkelling gear, book a kayak trip, get their hair braided, or a massage, and so on.
We were extremely lucky to experience only the first part of my story with no other tourists around. But you can see how this little island would be buzzing with all the attractions squeezed onto it once a cruise ship arrives. Up to 11 cruise ships a month dock here, each carrying around 2000 passengers at a time. Carnival cruises have heavily invested in building a pier, flushing toilets, etc. Yet they’re not happy with what they get, saying things haven’t improved in the 40 years they’ve been visiting. Yes, most toilets are long drops on the island, but guess where your poo from a flushing toilet would end up? Still enjoying snorkelling, fancy pants?
Locals do a great job keeping the island spotless. We saw it the day a cruise ship was meant to arrive – not a leaf on any walkway or seaweed on the beach. We also saw it when no cruise ship was scheduled, and guess what? Trees lose leaves on walkways, and locals are busy building more attractions or doing maintenance on the existing ones. But what do you expect? The island is uninhabited and not used unless a cruise ship or plane comes along. Do you want a real remote experience of island life or a purpose-built island by a cruise ship company with locals working for them? Locals need to maintain their independence and live a self-sustained life without cruise ships because we all know things like that can be over really quickly. Too late though, Aneityum has already agreed for Carnival to invest $27.5 million NZD. I’m very grateful to have experienced the island as is.
The island is uninhabited because locals believe ghosts live there at night. So everyone working during the day shoots over with their little boat from the neighbouring island, Aneityum. We anchored between the two islands, both being just a short dinghy ride away. Due to gusty winds, scheduled cruise ships didn’t arrive in the 10 days we were there, meaning we could go ashore and enjoy both islands without any other tourists.
Then there are still two mysteries that seem to remain unsolved. Why is the island called Mystery Island and who built the airstrip? We covered the different stories of how the island got its name in our YouTube video ‘Lost in Mystery Island’ – see the video below if you’re interested in those. Then there’s still the question of who built the cute little airstrip in the middle of the Pacific on an uninhabited island? Well, the locals say they built it, then there’s the other story that the US Army built it in World War II. I like to stick with the story from the locals, not the story cruise ships tell when trying to sell a trip to Mystery Island.
Anyway, it doesn’t matter if you get here by cruise ship, boat, or propeller plane, you won’t be disappointed. Mystery Island is a gem, and we thoroughly enjoyed our little island escape, feeling like we were in Cast Away, waiting for Wilson to float past. I’m sure there are many more places like that in Vanuatu and the Pacific, but this was a perfect start for some relaxation and to let it sink in that we are not just on a short holiday trying to escape reality, only to head back to the rat race. This is now our reality – just being, just enjoying, just taking it all in for as long as we can.
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