Sea Turtle Asthma?

This i promise, is the first in a long line of upcoming posts about our recent exploits in Vanuatu. It was quite a trip and there are a lot of stories to tell. But I thought this particular post would be a good starting point.

On our third day in Port Vila we took a kayaking trip that started off about 45 minutes outside of the city in a strange abandoned resort. Apparently this resort used to be one of the most popular places to stay in Efate but in the late 90s the customary (ni-Vanuatu) landowners sought to reclaim the property from the Vietnamese family who owned and ran it. The resulting land-dispute culminated with the entire resort being shut down by the government. Now its just acres of beautiful land around a lagoon filled with the creepy ruins of sea-side bungalows, empty restaurants and rotting tennis courts: a good setting for a horror movie.

But ALSO: the local people who live around the grounds still maintain the resort's two man-made tidal pools. One filled with reef sharks, the other with sea-turtles. They trapped the animals in the pools and the tide brings water and fish in and out, but the sharks and turtles themselves are too large to exit. We felt kind of bad for them, as they looked really bored in their little jails. However, we had some good time with our new friends the turtles. One of them might need an inhaler though, or maybe our presence made him so excited he started breathing heavily.



Also, please excuse my witty comments during the video, such as, "Is that GUY his MOM??" and "Hey, Friendo!"