From filmmaker and writer , MySon is a short film about a mother bringing a son into this complex world. In a society of differences, divisions, and misunderstanding, virtues like tolerance, humanity, and kindness can transcend cultural boundaries. The team at visited the islands of Vanuatu to capture this magnificent footage with the question of, “What do we want to pass on to future generations?” 

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You’ve likely seen the infamous and ubiquitous , which turns gaping at the city’s hard times into a sort of uncomfortable quasi-art. Now, in South America, a suffering tourist economy is turning to another sort of ruin tour: A once-popular glacier that has become a victim of climate change.

As recently as the 1990s, the Pastoruri glacier was a hot destination for tourists in Peru’s , located in the southern stretches of the Cordillera Blanca range. Now, it’s mostly just hot. The glacier is half the size it was two decades ago, , and it’s hurting tourism. In its heyday, Pastoruri saw 100,000 visitors annually; in 2012 that number shrank to just 34,000.

The rapid deterioration has also led to bans on climbing the actual (and increasingly tiny) glacier, but you’re more than welcome to come hike the “climate change route” to its base. The route is part of a larger circuit through the region that’s been in the works since 2010. It’s designed to inform visitors—through signage, tours and an interpretive center—about how the shifting climate is erasing Pastoruri and many other glaciers in the region.

Offering trekkers a “last chance” look at the Pastoruri or other receding glaciers could boost traffic to the park and bring in much-needed tourism money, but that remains to be seen. As for the glacier itself? Over the years, the park has implemented interventions like spreading sawdust on the glacier to insulate it, and painting rock outcroppings white to decrease the snow’s reflectivity. These measures slow melting, but only by a hair. 

And Pastoruri’s not alone. In what was once the ice-choked Northwest Passage, Crystal Cruises sees “the beginning of a new era of exploration”—meaning that for $20,000 you can spend a full month luxuriating in, uh, climate change? Of course, the company spins it much more favorably in its marketing materials: “Crystal Serenity becomes the very first luxury ship to ever traverse the Northwest Passage, a mystical Pacific-Atlantic sea route far beyond the Arctic Circle that for centuries captured the imaginations of kings, explorers and adventurers.” It’s a fair bet that none of those adventurers figured that one day, the ice would be replaced by a cruise ship carrying 1,700 vacationers hoping to glimpse polar bears or narwhals.

The company notes that “prominent luminaries in exploration, science, and/or politics” will join parts of the expedition, but mentions nothing about how climate change helped make the venue what it is today. No surprise, since the company is really not known for being green. In the , which tracks the progress, or lack thereof, various cruise lines are making toward environmental friendliness, Crystal Cruise Lines earned an F, and so did Crystal Serenity, the boat headed into the passage.

In a more hopeful turn of events, some companies are seeing climate change as an opportunity to introduce activist tourism. On Pele Island in Vanuatu, tourists can add  to their snorkeling itinerary. As they snorkel, they look for broken coral pieces and fasten them to grids mounted underwater, where (fingers crossed) they’ll grow into healthy coral systems again. Tourists to can do the same thing. In both places, a portion of tour revenues goes toward wider conservation and climate change adaptation efforts.

Clearly, climate change tourism is a thing now. The degree to which it will exasperate or respond to climate change, however, appears to be up to the companies and local economies that foster the trend.

As for Peru, even if this climate change tourism scheme works, it is at best a Band-Aid. Eventually, Pastoruri will be gone and locals will need to find other, and hopefully more sustainable, means of making a living. Because merely pointing to scree and saying, “Here once sat a glacier,” does not have quite the draw (no matter how uncomfortable) of pointing to a dilapidated building and saying, “Here once sat a gear in the engine that ran Motor City.”

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MARY CROWLEY, THE FOUNDER of Sausalito, California-based Ocean Voyages, a specialty charter yacht company that offers custom itineraries on more than 350 boats worldwide, started sailing the Great Lakes with her grandfather when she was four years old. At 18, she set out for the big blue, captaining boats worldwide, and in 1979 started Ocean Voyages. At age 52, Crowley has logged more than 70,000 miles at sea—a majority of them sailing the Pacific. To give your own wanderlust a nudge, we enlisted Crowley to provide us with her six favorite South Seas sailing destinations.

This is bliss: paradise a la Bora-Bora

Mangareva, Gambier Islands
Crowley’s draw to the Gambier chain is basic: Almost no one else travels to the “Forgotten Islands” 1,100 miles southeast of Tahiti. With its volcanic peaks, white-sand beaches, black-pearl farms, and a lagoon with ten uninhabited cays enclosed on three sides by a barrier reef, the principal island of Mangareva, says Crowley, is the ideal place to access virgin territory from a boat. Step off the one weekly flight from Papeete, Tahiti, and Mark Mensing will be docked nearby with his 48-foot trimaran Bold Spirit, which has a platform for launching kayaks, scuba dives, and snorkeling forays.

Huahine, Raiatea, Tahaa, and Bora-Bora
“These islands are everybody’s prototypical image of the South Pacific,” says Crowley. The best way to soak in the emerald peaks and azure lagoons of the “Islands Under the Wind” is to take a 14-day voyage from Huahine to Raiatea to Tahaa to Bora-Bora. Start in the tiny village of Fare, its quay lined with a little row of shops, then sail three to five hours, 20 miles west, to Raiatea. Anchor in the island’s protected lagoon and snorkel in technicolor madness. Then sail four miles north to visit the famed vanilla plantations of Tahaa. From there it’s a four- to six-hour sail 25 miles northwest to Bora-Bora, with its still-ample secluded anchorages. To sail in luxurious decadence, try the Symphonia, a 112-foot yacht that sleeps ten. The 50-foot catamaran Fai Manu is run by a French-Italian captain who’s been living in the islands for 20 years.

Tonga
Tonga is the Cuba of the South Pacific. “I have memories of rowing ashore and following the music to a group of villagers who were rehearsing for a dance performance,” says Crowley. Ruled by the oldest and last remaining of the Polynesian monarchies, and comprising 150 islands, Tonga also has some of the most consistent winds in the South Pacific, especially between the Vava’u and Ha’apai island groups. Spend six days exploring the 30 islets and isolated anchorages of Vava’u, making sure to include the jaw-dropping sail up the seven-mile Ava Pulepulekai Channel into the Port of Refuge on Vava’u island. Its tiny town, Neiafu, is surrounded by brilliant-green crenelated peaks. From Neiafu, it’s a one-day sail southwest to the Ha’apai group, which is composed of 50 low-lying islands. Beware: Sailing here is for experienced seafarers only. The 51-foot Impetuous has an expert crew from New Zealand.

Espíritu Santo, Vanuatu
At 1,420 square miles, Espíritu Santo is Vanuatu’s largest island. This Melanesian nub offers serious scuba diving and snorkeling centered around two sites: the SS President Coolidge, the largest diveable wreck in the world, and Million Dollar Point, where U.S. forces dumped their entire stock of war matériel. From Espíritu Santo, experienced sailors can set out on a one- to two-day, 90-mile voyage north to the Banks and Torres Islands. Virtually untouched by the outside world, these islands have only a handful of residents. Having sailed these waters for years, the 145-foot classic square-rigger Soren Larsen has built a trusting relationship with the islanders, and often provides them with gifts and supplies.

Niue
The world’s smallest self-governing state, set between the Cook Islands and Tonga, 100-square-mile Niue is one paradise not to pass up. In addition to wild orchids at every turn, the island has some of the largest coastal limestone caverns in the South Pacific, with stalactites and stalagmites forming monster jaws you can walk between. The six-day, 680-mile, open-ocean sail from Rarotonga isn’t for the faint of heart, but once you arrive, Niueans will invite you into their homes and show you how to pick the best coconuts. Three vessels make this voyage: Mensing’s Bold Spirit; the 56-foot Emotional Rescue, a custom, high-performance racing cutter; and the 56-foot New Zealand-built Gallivant.

New Caledonia
The cosmopolitan French cultural center of Nouméa, on the southwest coast, is an ideal jumping-off spot for two prime sailing destinations: the Isle of Pines and the Loyalty Islands. Some 62 miles southeast of New Caledonia, the 11-mile-long Isle of Pines has stunning white-sand beaches, especially at Kuto Bay and the Kanumera Coves. The four Loyalty Islands, Uvéa, Lifou, Tiga, and Maré, spaced within 30 miles of one another, provide a perfect island-hopping itinerary. The Soren Larsen, 90-foot R. Tucker Thompson, and 84-foot Firebird all sail here.

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Solomon Islands Diving

After the recently launched Solomon Island Aggressor logged 295 nautical miles charting 30 new scuba-diving sites, it became clear that the starring attraction of the Solomons’s remote Western Province is…bait balls. These roiling masses of grunts, jacks, and mackerel are frenzied fish parties crashed by assorted billfish, devilfish, dogfish tuna, bumphead wrasses, and reef sharks, all fearless in the presence of the rare diver.


The 107-foot Aggressor, a 16-passenger yacht based in the Solomons just four months a year, aims to ensure that humans feel as relaxed as the fish. The nine-member crew includes a chef with a penchant for gourmet twists on regional cuisine (the cassava with marinated steak is delicious). Carpeted staterooms have private baths, air conditioning, and queen-sized beds or twin lofts. There’s a photo center, video library, six-person hot tub, GPS system with Loran C, and safety equipment with integrated nitrox and oxygen capabilities.
July through November, the Aggressor makes seven-day sojourns that explore the geothermal hot spot of Vella Lavella Island, 629 square kilometers of forest, fumaroles, and dormant volcanoes with a coast inhabited by porpoises, sharks, rays, bait balls aplenty, and vast populations of clownfish, cowries, and soft coral. Also on the itinerary are visits with the islanders; a look at topside World War II sites in Guadalcana’s capital city of Honiara; and a stay in Gizo in the New Georgias, renowned for radical walls, wrecks, and offshore Plum Pudding Island, where a marooned John F. Kennedy and his IPT-109 crew spent ten long days.


Weekly charters are $2,695 per person (experienced divers only), double occupancy, including meals, diving, three hotel nights, a two-tank Gizo dive, and a tour of Honiara. Contact 800.344.5662.

Sea Kayaking in Fiji

In the remote villages of Fiji, some of the locals mark important events by spending the evenings drinking kava, a mildly narcotic brew made from the dried root of the pepperlike yagona plant. A suitable occasion, for instance, might be your arrival by sea kayak. On Vanua Levu, Fiji’s second-largest island, Eco Divers-Tours will lead you on a five-day kayak expedition along an indented coast to remote villages still unacquainted with conveniences like electricity. The kayaking in Savusavu Bay is grand: On short open-water passages you might divert your course to get a closer look at a spouting pilot whale. Or on the Nasekawa River you could exchange greetings with a farmer who is amazed that you have come from such a faraway place—i.e., Savusavu town, about six miles distant.


But the best reason to make the trip is the opportunity to spend the night in the villages and experience the true Fijian lifestyle and hospitality. You’ll stay in the villagers’ homes, eat their food (taro, cassava, corned beef, raw fish, or just about anything else marinated in coconut cream), and sleep on pandanus mats on the floor. If you’re lucky, you will sit up with them well into the night drinking kava prepared from the yagona root you presented as a gift upon your arrival. After enough bowls full of the chalky-tasting liquid have been passed around, you might learn from your hosts that the lower you are to the ground, the longer you will live. That trees have eyes to see and ears to hear. And that it is far better to spend money on a child’s education than on electricity.
The five-day trip is around $760-1,025 per person for groups of two to ten, including all meals, hotel accommodations for the first and last night, and kayaks; call 011.679.850122.

Loloata Island Resort, Papua New Guinea

Diving Papua New Guinea needn’t entail a sweaty wait for a connecting flight to some cost-a-small-fortune remote corner of the island country. Some of PNG’s best macro diving lies within a half hour of its gateway, Port Moresby’s international airport. The reefs at Loloata Island Resort in Bootless Bay, 12 miles southeast of town, are virtually untouched—chalice choral flaunt ten-foot spreads at a depth of just five feet.


A 15-minute van ride gets you to a barbed-wire gate, and a ten-minute ferry ride lands you on uninhabited Loloata Island and its sleepy, 1960s chicken farm turned resort. Its waters shelter vast stands of hard coral and sea whips, along with pygmy sea horses, mantis shrimp, pipefish, and lots of mollusks—of the 43 known species of allied cowrie, 39 are found here.
The resort has 17 beachfront bungalows on stilts, each with colonial-style furniture, private baths, and veranda with ocean view. On-site you’ll find a modest restaurant and bar, as well as an ad hoc zoo with kangaroos, wallabies, and several kinds of native birds. The resort’s dive operation provides equipment, PADI instruction, and a ten-person dive boat. More than 30 sites lie within easy reach: End Bommie is known for its scorpionfish; Lion Island for black coral; and A-20 Havoc for its sunken bomber. New sites include Dianne’s Reef, inside the main barrier reef packed with soft corals, and Nadine’s Passage, a narrow gully through the barrier reef thick with gorgonian fans, pink sea whips, and pygmy sea horses. Bring your own computer and camera gear.


Double rooms are $200 per night, including airport transfers and meals. Call 011.675.325.8590.

Three Versions of Vanuatu

If you’re looking for the prototypical fantasy island plus a wild hit of traditional culture, Vanuatu could be it. Just a seaplane’s hop from Fiji, this South Pacific archipelago is home to an eerie Titanicky dive wreck, locals who have bungee jumped for centuries, and a religious cult that anxiously awaits the return of appliance-bearing American soldiers. Known as the New Hebrides until 1980, Vanuatu’s 83 islands have 185,000 residents who speak 115 different languages. Little has changed in their fascinating home since Allied forces (and James Michener) passed through in the ’40s.


On the surprisingly cosmopolitan island of Efate, book one of 70 elevated bungalows, each with air conditioning, marble bathrooms, and balcony, at the beachside Iririki Island Resort (doubles $240-$290; 011.67.8.23388). On-site activities include snorkeling, canoeing, kayaking, and windsurfing.
When the jet lag has eased, take the one-hour plane ride to Espiritu Santo Island, the country’s largest, and hook up with Santo Dive Tours (one-tank dive, $20; 011.67.8.36822). Here you’ll explore the 654-foot luxury liner turned WWII troop ship President Coolidge, one of the world’s largest easily assessible wrecks and one of the finest dives around. The almost fully intact ship, at rest in 60 to 230 feet of water, is littered with the personal effects of 5,000 American troops and crew. When you come up for air, stay in one of 17 hexagonal, thatched-roof fares at the six-acre Bougainville Resort. It feels like an old estate villa, surrounded by tropical gardens teeming with orchids, hibiscus, and frangipani (doubles $75; 011.67.8.36257).


On Tanna Island, you can almost touch the edge of 1,184-foot Mount Yasur, a volcano so reliably active you’ll want to wear running shoes. Locals belive that it’s the originator of the universe—or a spiritual home after death. Go at night, when the sound effects and fireworks are even more dramatic. Arrange for a guide on this 40-minute (one way) hike at the Tanna Beach Resort (doubles $49-$61 per person; 011.67.8.68626), which has nine thatched-roof bungalows with private baths.


If that’s not enough excitement, attend services at a church of Jon Frum, a cargo cult that emerged after American planes dropped luxuries onto the island during World War II. Members pray for refrigerators and radios to again drop from the sky and display the Red Cross insignia liberally.


Fall visitors may catch the three- to five-day Nekowiar Ceremony with its famous Toka Dance, an alliance-making event between villages consisting of feasting, face-painting, and dancing, which takes place between August and November. Even if VCRs aren’t falling from the sky, it’s nice to know that tradition is alive and well in Bali Hai.

Sailing in the Whitsunday Islands, Australia

Divers may extol the Whitsundays as an ideal base for scuba trips to the Great Barrier Reef, but in their deep-sea tunnel vision, they’re ignoring some of the finest sailing on the planet. Reliable winds and hundreds of protected bays among this tight jumble of 74 mostly uninhabited islands make it a perfect place to ride the waves.


Sixty-six of the archipelago’s islands have been designated national parkland, replete with faw sandstone bluffs and lush pine, acadia, and eucalyptus forest. The other islands host developed resorts, lending a dash of gentility to this bushland environment just of the edge of Queenstown. The Hayman Island Resort spa is worth a stop. For an elegant dinner, dock at the Hamilton Island Resort, where the Outrigger Room serves excellent seafood. For a more casual meal, toss back some fish and chips at Harpoon Harry’s, overlooking the marina in town.
Another scenic destination is Whitsunday’s southern chain, including Pentecost, Saw, and Thomas Islands, where you can grill coral trout or bluefin tuna on the back of your boat in perfect seclusion.


Australian spring (our fall) brings fine tropical weather, with generally steady, moderate breezes and warm water for windsurfing and snorkeling. On land, you can lounge on the coral-lined white-sand beaches that surround Daydream, South Molle, and Hook Islands. From your beach towel you may spot wallabies, goats, goannas, and other Australian fauna separated from the mainland when the Ice Age carved these “drowned-mountain” islands. Underwater, the array is equally dramatic, whith anemones, barramundi, octopi, white sharks, manta rays, and turtles frequently passing before your mask.


You can easily arrange day trips from the Hamilton docks or hire a seaplane to deliver you from the back of your sailboat. Most Australian charter companies provide twice-daily radio checks, which include weather updates and reassurance for the less-experienced sailor.


Australian Bareboat Charters (011.61.7.4946.9381) and Sail Whitsunday Yacht Charters (011.61.7..4946.7070) can arrange excursions. A 40-foot bareboat yacht runs $244-$462 per night (five-night minimum); add $99 per night for a skipper. for more information on yacht charters, check www.whitsunday.net.au.

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Unlike its neighbor, Fiji, the pacific nation of Vanuatu, made up of 83 ruggedly forested, volcanically active islands, is a place hardly anyone in America knows. Which is odd, when you think about it. True, Vanuatu is so undeveloped that on the dozen or so larger islands where most of its people live you can still discuss the latest stock report (somebody’s cows wandering through a neighbor’s garden patch again) with a man whose entire wardrobe consists of a woven grass namba, or penis sheath. And when they bungee-jump in Vanuatu, where the pastime was invented centuries ago, they don’t use sissy stuff like bungee cords. Instead, land divers, as they are called, tie jungle vines around their ankles and plunge from towers, up to 100 feet high, that look as if they were constructed from sticks and branches by a nest-building bird who got into the fermented berries.

Yet Vanuatu, known as New Hebrides until it gained independence from England and France in 1980, has had a distinct effect on American culture, or at least on how we imagine paradise. It was among these coconut-palm-and-beach-fringed islands that Lieutenant James A. Michener was inspired to create the mystical heaven on earth known as Bali Hai.
Now, half a century later, other American travelers are discovering the archipelago too. Of Vanuatu’s 100,000 or so annual visitors, more than half come ashore via cruise ship or yacht. The rest fly in, either extending a visit to Fiji—which boasts more than a decade’s head start on development and three times the tourists—or skipping Fiji altogether.


While flying into Vanuatu is easy enough, getting around its mountainous interior—in much-abused four-wheel-drive vehicles or on foot—can be a challenge. And because tourism is new to the outer islands, lodgings at times consist of dirt-floored leaf houses where, as the tourism office so eloquently puts it, “running water is not common and the bath is to be taken on the beach or in the river.” But for uncrowded diving, sea kayaking, and trekking, and for an adventurous look at a corner of the South Pacific that has changed little since Allied forces passed through, Vanuatu is among the most fascinating spots I’ve encountered in three decades of bumping around. It’s the kind of place where, if you harbor, as I do, the fantasy of getting temporarily marooned on a tropical island, you’ll likely begin plotting your return soon after your arrival.

Right, Time, Right Place, Right Now

Efate

“Machetes, aisle three,” said the hardware store clerk in Port Vila, on Efate, the third-largest of Vanuatu’s islands and home to two-thirds of its mostly Melanesian population of 180,000. Port Vila, the capital, though faded and scruffy in a pleasant, Somerset Maughamish kind of way, is surprisingly cosmopolitan. At Le Meridien, I could order Melanesian dishes, such as minced pork wrapped in manioc and taro leaves, in English, at Paris-steep prices. As I picked at my coconut crab at the Waterfront Bar & Grill, I eavesdropped on yachties whose timetable dictated cruising to New Zealand before December’s cyclone season began. I could have shopped for French cologne or Australian shiraz. But instead I walked to the hardware store, because I’ve always wanted a machete and could find no souvenir in the duty-free shop that pleased me half as much, even though it turned out to be made in Brazil.


The best of Vanuatu lies beyond Efate. But stay a day or two to sea kayak to tiny offshore islands, snorkel among 300 species of coral, and visit the Ekasup Cultural Village. Located a few miles from Port Vila, the village is a scattering of traditional thatch houses, their pointed roofs extending almost to the ground to make them more secure during high winds. Traditional too is the location, near a banyan tree with a huge, above-ground root system that provides sanctuary during cyclones. The show Ekasup puts on is a bit commercial, but it can provide some insight into the old survival skills, which could prove useful if you find yourself in the outer islands without lunch in hand and need to know how to trap a fish or spear a pig.

Espiritu Santo

Santo, as it is usually called, is where Michener was based. No other place in all the vast Pacific, he later wrote, made as profound an impression on him. The largest of Vanuatu’s islands, it has a craggy interior that makes for rugged hiking through massive kauri trees, orchids, and moss-hung cloud forest. And Champagne Beach, with its sweep of white sand, is arguably the best in the country. But like most visitors, I’d come here for the President Coolidge, a 654-foot luxury liner-turned-American troop carrier that is considered one of the world’s finest wreck dives.


The Coolidge went down so fast after striking a “friendly” mine in October 1942 that its decks are still strewn with the rifles and personal effects of the more than 5,000 men who were aboard. (Most walked ashore, and only one life was lost.) Now sitting in 60 to 200 feet of water, the ship lies on its side but is almost fully intact. The dive, along the promenade deck, down long corridors, and into the staterooms themselves if you are experienced enough, is eerily similar to the underwater scenes in Titanic. (A few miles inland, both snorkelers and divers will also want to check out several spring-fed blue holes, where visibility is so great that as you look up, fish appear to be swimming across the sky.)
I dove with Santo Dive Tours, whose owner, Alan Power, has been exploring the Coolidge for 29 years. A round-bellied Aussie locally known as Mr. President, Power is a classic Santo character—at least that’s what I decided after spotting a hand-lettered memorial in his backyard eulogizing a cow who was the only victim of Japan’s one wartime attack on the island’s airfield.

Pentecost Island

Eel-shaped Pentecost Island, so undeveloped that there are few places to stay other than traditional leaf houses in small villages, is proof that there were crazy people in the world long before 1988, when a New Zealand company opened the first commercial bungee-jumping operation. Land diving is so rooted in local culture, in fact, that the Vanuatu government is allegedly trying to obtain compensation from international operators for “theft of the custom of Pentecost.” Though now strictly a male undertaking, done to ensure a successful yam crop, legend has it that the first jumper was a woman escaping an abusive husband who chased her up a banyan tree.


The jumps take place on Saturdays in April and May. Nowadays, many are put on just for tourists. But the most authentic—ritual jumps in which 30 divers a day leap from the highest towers—are held only once each month, in the village of Bunlap. Presumably the divers here have donned Western-style pants only once&3151;for the 1974 visit of Queen Elizabeth II.

Tanna

One of the southernmost populated islands, Tanna is best known for its mysterious “cargo cult” religion, as well as its uniquely accessible, reliably active volcano, Mount Yasur.


Yasur’s personality is more simmering than violent, but it has been erupting, sometimes with fatal results, almost continuously since Captain James Cook first observed it in 1774. With a licensed guide, which is the only way to go, you drive across an ash plain, past a lifeless lake, to a parking lot scattered with boulders that—though best not to ponder it until you are a safe distance away—were flung from the caldera during past eruptions.
From there, scramble 400 feet up the side of the cone until you come, abruptly, to the realization that there is no guardrail between you and a very big barbecue pit. It’s possible to visit Yasur on a day trip from Port Vila, but far better to stay on Tanna at least one night, which will allow you to make the climb just before sunset, when the sparkler-like display is at its best. Activity is greater, and more spectacular, during the wet season, from December through March.


The day I visited, I was standing at the crater’s edge, snickering about a nearby Frenchman sporting a hard hat and ski goggles, when the ground shook with a sound as if whatever God was driving desperately needed a new muffler. A fiery array of molten rocks the size of big-screen TVs shot into the air, followed by a belch of black smoke that devoured the entire crater but, thank goodness, was pushed away from us by a gust of wind. “Good thing I brought a clean pair of knickers,” said an Australian woman standing next to me, whose initial shriek had fortunately covered my own. Our guide shrugged. “Not to worry,” he said. “The activity is only Level Two.”


I didn’t find his reassurance all that comforting, since Level One means no activity, and Level Three that the island is in imminent danger of being vaporized. The grading scale needed refinement. Still, I stayed and watched the Roman-candle-like vents spew for another hour, and would have stayed longer if I’d had a hard hat and ski goggles.


Not far from the volcano is Sulphur Bay, or Ipeukel, the main village of the cargo cult known as John Frum. Another World War II legacy that has nearly disappeared, cargo cults once flourished all over the Southwest Pacific, with locals convinced that if they pleased the gods—by clearing jungle airstrips and building bamboo models of such unimaginable wealth as radios, refrigerators, and jeeps—they would once again be showered with the real things. Who John Frum was is something of a mystery, but he may have been an American medical corpsman, “John from America,” whose red-cross insignia has become the cult’s symbol.


Every Friday at their church in Sulphur Bay, the worshipers—whose ceremonial garb includes cast-off U.S. military uniforms—hold services that consist mostly of singing, dancing, and for the men, drinking an intoxicating kava-root brew. Visitors are welcome year-round, but the big blowout is on February 15, John Frum Day, when 100 barefoot “soldiers” carrying bamboo rifles drill solemnly before a tattered 48-star American flag in expectation of their messiah’s return. It’s likely the most flattering, if surreal, reception an American could receive so far from home. Perhaps, if I’m ever marooned on this particular tropical island, these troops would consider defending me against misguided would-be rescuers.

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