Luganville - Activities, Attractions & Shopping
Activities and Attractions:
Scuba diving on reefs, at Million Dollar Point and on the SS Coolidge can be arranged by any of the local dive operators. They will pick you up at the Beachfront Resort and some offer special cruiser’s discounts and will pick you up from your boat. For safety and security reasons no one is permitted to dive the wreck unless accompanied by a local dive guide. The harbormaster enforces the regulations and will order a search of boats that defy the guidelines to ensure that no artifacts have been stolen.
Don’t miss the exhilarating Millenium Cave Adventure Tours offered through local tour operators. If you are fit, you will enjoy the jungle hike, some scrambling and walking in the river through the cave (lights provided), and tubing down the river in the deep gorge.
Blue Holes at Peterson Bay – good blog report by SY Legacy.
Coral Quays Fish & Dive Resort
Shopping:
The numerous stores along Luganville’s main street all look basically the same from the storefronts, but everyone sells different items and the curious shopper will be likely to find interesting items.
The Women’s Handicraft Center, near BP Wharf, sells carvings, baskets, and other handicrafts from Santo and Vanuatu’s other islands.
If you have information for this section, or feedback on businesses used, please let us know at editor@noonsite.com. We also welcome new information about businesses you have used (see Related Businesses).
Next Section: Shore Services: Restaurants, Bars & Nightlife
Related to following destinations: Espiritu Santo, Luganville, Vanuatu
Port Navigation
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We cleared into Luganville last week and would absolutely recommend anchoring out the front of beachfront resort (on the Luganville side). The staff and owner are extremely accommodating to yachties and if you buy delicious food/drinks from the restaurant, they give you the wifi password and you can spend the day on the clean pool deck in the shade catching up on business while looking down the well kept grassy knoll to your yacht bobbing in the anchorage.
The beach is brown sand and the water is not very clear, but it is a great spot to refill water from the tap (access turnkey at reception), they take rubbish for a small fee then you can grab a taxi to the nearby petrol station if you need to fill up jerry cans. Our laundry came back extra fresh and it’s been a great week with only one really rolly day.
I think this anchorage is much better than picking up a mooring on the inconvenient More side if you have things to do in town. LCM supermarket delivers apparently if you need to do a big shop before heading to the Banks. (They bring the stuff quite close to your dinghy in a wheelbarrow actually)
There is a new “Aore Art Café” right in front of the immigration building, on the seashore. You can land your dinghy there (just left from the pilot boat wreck).
They welcome cruisers and can keep the dinghy, make laundry, water, print id pictures, free wifi, and of course, serve very good food and drinks. A very nice stop in Luganville.
Update Oct 2016 – the Aore resort has new (Australian) owners. Whilst there are still 3 moorings available at 1500VT per night (plus 3 more owned by neighbour Paul who runs a dive operation) the new owners are less friendly / accommodating to yachties so now there’s no water, rubbish or laundry facilities and the ferry to Luganville is 250VT pp return.
An update to fvberswordt’s comment below:
Concerning my original comment (moorings on Aore): The name of the resort’s neighbour to the east is Paul (a very nice Australian guy).
Price for all mornings (resort and Paul) was 1.500 vatu/night.
As of September 15th 2015, there are only four mooring balls in front of the Aore Resort and their neighbour to the east (each has two working moorings).
At least one of the mooring balls only marks a concrete anchor with a very weak rope and is not suited for mooring. You can identify these ball(s) by their missing pick up line.