Marie and I had an instant connection. When researching Espiritu Santo’s best eco-homestays, I found it rather hard to identify the right places to stay and where to go. Following gut instinct, I reached out to the small, remote and under-represented Little Bay Bungalow. Marie’s very first reply gave me the sense she was all about those good vibes. We traded emails throughout the course of the next six months, and I became genuinely excited each time I saw a message from her in my inbox. Her demeanor was warm, and our initial conversations were so fluid—it was as if we knew each other in another life.
Touching down in Santo, Marie greeted us at the airport and it really was love at first sight. Following instincts had proven successful! Formalities were quickly thrown aside, and the feeling was one of seeing an old and dear friend for the first time in a long time. There were big hugs, lots of jokes and an overwhelming amount of excitement coming from all parties, as Marie and I bonded over eating melting cookies whilst waiting for her husband, Elysee, to pick us up from the side of the road to drive us to the bungalows.
The expedition team took to Marie quickly too. Especially once we had the chance to try her cooking. It was coconut farm-to-table dishes that did it, blowing our mind with each new preparation, so thoughtfully curated with all the love in the world. We were staying right outside of a small village called Port Olry on Marie’s self-appointed conservation site that was as far away from any main tourist hub as you could get on Santo. Our goal was to dive her uncharted waters and put her property on the map as a new scuba destination in Vanuatu.
Over the week, Marie let us survey her pristine, protected reef. Each day presented a new set of weather variables for us to thoughtfully navigate. Many times, we were left starfishing our bodies over the reef so that we could ride the heavy surges coming through, with Marie watching like the concerned mother she is from the shoreline.
Not only did we have a ton of time in the water, but we had the chance to live as the locals do. Marie taught us how to eat and use coconuts in varying ways. She often explained what it means to take only what’s needed from the land and sea for sustenance. She outlined what to do when plunging into spirit-infested blue holes and even how to protect monarch butterfly cocoons from hungry predators. It was a quaint, wholesome, pure and downright lovely experience.
Our nightly coconut crab encounters were a highlight of our time in Santo. At dusk, we’d leave coconut pieces outside of the crab’s rock caves, wait until it was pitch black and then check to see what we’d find. Our anticipation for this one was always high. We’d be stepping over each other in the dark trying to get a closer look over Marie’s shoulders to what she found hiding in the night.
But perhaps the most unsuspecting highlight of this leg of our expedition was a chore that most humans find tedious: doing the laundry. With nothing but solar panels to charge our occasional dead phones, there was zero electricity at the bungalows. But there was an extremely satisfying manual, human-powered method for completing this very chore. We’d put all of our laundry into a bucket with a bar of soap and then mash and dash the clothes together, emulating a washing machine. I know, I know, there’s nothing special about this very standard practice.
We didn’t know it at the time, but this was to become our primary method for washing clothes for many months to come. In the act of washing, we came up with a song that helped us pass the time. Initially inspired by a Lord of the Rings quote, we added lines of lyrics with every load that went by. And today, this song has been sung one too many times on this expedition.
Boil em, mash em, stick em in a stew.
Make our clothes not smell like poo.
Laundry soup for me and you.
This is what we must do.
Right foot, left foot, one hand too.
This is how the cauldron brews.
Everybody spread the news.
Now our clothes don’t smell like poos.
On our last day, Marie and I went down to the beach to talk. She wanted to see the content we created for her newly formed Instagram to help drive the right kind of business to the bungalows. We were there to not only mark Little Bay as a formal dive site, but also to help Marie market her property as a home away from home, for those who love going far off the trodden path.
I read the stories we wrote about our time at Little Bay, and shared the photography we took both above and below the waterline. It was one thing to produce the content, but to share it with her in real time hit harder than I think we both had expected. We laughed, cried, and hugged. It was one of the more rewarding moments I’d had in a long time—and certainly what I personally hoped to achieve on this expedition around the world.
It’s not every day you can meet someone that you connect with right off the bat. Especially when that initial bonding is happening online. The whole point of going to the edges of earth is to help people like Marie and Elysee who have amazing stories to tell and experiences to share that otherwise would go untold. Our time with Marie was the exact vision our team had in my mind from the beginning, when this expedition was still just a concept.
We’ve been keeping in touch with Marie ever since. She checks in to see how things are going as we explore other remote destinations, what wildlife encounters we’re having, if we’re liking anyone else’s food more than hers and when we are coming back. Saying goodbye with welled-up eyes at the airport we knew one thing clearly: it was going to be hard to beat our time in Santo, Vanuatu. Marie, Elysee, Little Bay Bungalows, we’ll be back.
To be continued …
The rich text element allows you to create and format headings, paragraphs, blockquotes, images, and video all in one place instead of having to add and format them individually. Just double-click and easily create content.
A rich text element can be used with static or dynamic content. For static content, just drop it into any page and begin editing. For dynamic content, add a rich text field to any collection and then connect a rich text element to that field in the settings panel. Voila!
Headings, paragraphs, blockquotes, figures, images, and figure captions can all be styled after a class is added to the rich text element using the "When inside of" nested selector system.
