We had ordered room service breakfast, as we had to have a face to face interview with the Australian Border Force, having first to collect a card from the Marquis dining room, before proceeding ashore to go through immigration. We had friends meeting us about 8.00 am, so didn't want to keep them waiting. The queue for the interview was not long and we were soon through this new terminal building which was not built eight years ago when we last here. Unsure exactly where we would meet, we finally got together, and we were soon speeding out of the city.

We drove on the state highway No 26 and turned off to visit a small seaside town called Woody Point in the Moreton Bay area, which is in sight of the Brisbane port far away in the distance. Obviously a large and expensive residential area, there were a great many lovely houses and apartments with large balconies, some of the latter appeared to be fairly new. We had a walk by a jetty, and looked across to a community across the bay which used to have a regular ferry. We then drove to Redcliffe, another lovely Oceanside town. The town was heaving with cars and progress was slow. This was exacerbated because part of the town is closed on a Sunday for a street market, and it was difficult to find a parking space, so we were grateful to find someone leaving in the Woolworths car park.

It was a beautiful sunny day and it was very interesting to wander through the thronging street market, which had various stalls on both sides of the road, offering both food, clothes, and unusual gifts from wind chimes to wooden bow ties.

In a side street off the main street, there is a montage and exhibition of the Gibb brothers, the Bee Gees who lived in this area. There are cast statues of them, and various pictures of the family along the entire street with their music being played over a speaker. Leaving here we drove to Suttons Beach Parkland and Pilpel, the restaurant where we had a table booked.

This restaurant is run by a charming Israeli, married to an Australian. The restaurant is situated virtually on the beach front. Our party of five were shown to an ocean side table. There are various options on the menu, but we opted for the "feast" aptly named as we were presented with fifteen different entrees as diverse as falafel, hummus, tzatziki, and small squares of warm pita bread. This was followed by an enormous dish placed in the centre of the table containing beef, lamb, crevettes and calamari. This really was a feast, but the joy, was that each individual dish was of top quality, well cooked and flavoursome, followed by typical Middle Eastern dessert items, such as rose Turkish delight and baklava. This too was of a very good quality and finally to finish a cup of authentic mint tea.

The service from the staff was extremely attentive, and we were only sorry that living on another continent, we could not patronize Adiel's restaurant on a regular basis.

Kiriwina - The ride ashore was only about ten minutes and we alighted onto a long concrete jetty with a rail on one side, stretching some forty yards to the shore. Walking along this jetty we were bombarded by kids in small canoes asking for money. Reaching the shore, it was surprising how steeply the beach shelved to reach the water's edge. The locals as we were to find out later, were segregated from the passengers, by a little fence - a tree branch stuck in the ground and a bit of wire strung between it. Behind this was a constant stream of villagers going about their normal daily lives, but the sellers were strung along the shore side with their goods laid out on huge banana leaves. These ranged from wooden items, intricately carved bowls, etc. with beautiful prices to match! Objects resembling black plaited small sticks turned out to be tobacco. Also on sale were both cooked and uncooked small lobsters and crabs, these too were not cheap.

Observations - less people seemed to speak any English here, unlike those in Dioni, but those who did, spoke good English. Most of course knew Hello and Bye Bye. Foreigners/Westerners are called "Dim dim" by these islanders - aptly titled for some of our passengers (!), and my blonde hair was a magnet for many of the curious, mainly the children, of which there are a lot. Stopping to speak to a little boy about two who was sitting on the ground with his family, I held out my hand to shake his, pointing to myself and saying "dim dim", his curiosity overcame his shyness and he took my hand, only to recoil in horror, rushed back to his mother and threw himself into his mother's arms. She smiled, but I felt I must have appeared to be an alien to him! Another surprise was that all the locals were fully clothed, men and boys wearing tee shirts and shorts, and the ladies, dresses, with only the young male children bare breasted. This seems to indicate that the "dancers" of Dioni, specifically put on this show for the tourists, and away from the attention, wear normal Western clothes.

As we retraced our steps back to the jetty, there was a man who we had heard with a loud speaker talking in the local tongue and we asked what he was saying. Apparently he was the local Consul whose job it was to keep the villagers under control, hence the fence, saying they had now had their "sales" opportunity and to return to their tasks etc. He reiterated that he was doing this for the security of the passengers from cruise ships. He realised of course, that no trouble, would mean the return of the cruise lines.

Kitava With the rain holding off for longer periods now, we ventured ashore to the island to see if we could find out why the Kitavans are so healthy, having a diet so similar to that of the Kiriwinas, who apparently have a large percentage of child mortality, and do not live to old age. Seeing how near relatively speaking, the two islands are, this seems to be an enigma. Unfortunately once it was open house for the tenders, the rain came down, so, with only shorts and sandals, we decided to go ahead. Once again the jetty was of concrete with hand rails all along. Shorter than in Kiriwina, there were only a few small steps and you were on the sand. The beach here was level and the trees were much taller and denser and reached almost to the sea. Most of the villagers were sheltering under banana leaves, many had umbrellas, or were in little old fashioned market stalls. Most had their goods laid out on banana leaves or pieces of material. The items on sale here were mainly wooden ornaments and shells, although we did see one baseball cap. It was even too wet to take photographs with the risk of a wet camera. Not to be outdone we stood under the awning of the Princess security at the edge of the jetty leading to the tender and took a few pictures, although not near enough to take the people. They really are totally different to any of the other islanders we have previously seen. More akin to the Polynesians, they really are a lovely looking people without the extreme curly hair of the previous inhabitants of the other islands we had visited. It was a pity that we did not see any of the healthy food for which they are famous.

Soaked to the skin, we walked along the jetty to the waiting tender. This was tender No. 3, one we had previously experienced, this one has one window pane missing, and the roof leaks like a sieve, and was dripping down on us like a waterfall. We were half way back to the ship before an oil skinned member of the crew, decided to pull down the side flaps, where the rain was coming in, in a steady torrent! By the time we had arrived back to the ship ten minutes later, we were wetter than we had been ashore!

Once again Champagne Bay was a tender operation and this lovely island is known, as are so many in this area, for its sweeping curve of pink-tinged sand framed against a classic south-seas turquoise lagoon, and it is also probably the most famous of Vanuatu’s beaches. Located on the northeast coastline of Espiritu Santo, its name is derived from a natural phenomenon. At low tide when the water is at its shallowest, the sound the water makes is a fizzing noise like champagne as it passes through the volcanic rocks on the sea bottom. We had intended once again to snorkel here, but first went ashore and looked at the sales opportunity, and for the elusive fridge magnets, which remained so. It was also very interesting to watch the crabs, lobsters and various other sea creatures which were being sold on the beach prior to the vendors dumping them into a cauldron of hot water and giving them cooked to their buyers on a banana leaf. There were many people swimming and snorkelling in the Bay, and were surprised at some people’s comments that the water was cold. Apparently there are local cold water springs which feed the Bay in this area, so we decided against snorkelling and returned to the ship.

Although we recognised the bay at Vila, there is work going on at the quayside to enlarge the dock area - and surprise, the company contracted to do the work is of course Chinese, but the donkey work was being done by the locals. Running the gamut of many more stalls selling a variety of goods than eight years previously, we got a cab into town at a cost of five dollars per head. He crammed fourteen passengers into this small minibus and then had the gall, due to traffic to drop us off well before the landmark and the supposed drop off, of the post office.

However we then walked along the road, gradually remembering the street we had last seen eight years ago. We found the chemist where we had originally bought antibiotics and repeated our purchase. Vila is a duty free port and liquor is very much cheaper, certainly much less than the ship, so we bought two bottles of gin, which as previously, would be delivered to the ship. Our final port of call was to a lovely little cafe facing the ocean where we bought two lovely fresh fruit juices and got free Internet, albeit not terribly fast, a bit frustrating as we needed to book airline seats for a flight to Valencia in a few weeks’ time. Our "chores" done, we found a taxi who would return us to the ship for $AUD 5 each. Once again we had to walk through all the stalls to get back on the ship, and this time we bought six coasters and finally - a fridge magnet!