Cinema
Photo report
Having seen media reports on activity at Gaua (Mt.
Garet) and looking for something a bit
unusual, I decided to travel to basically the furthest point
away from Europe on the globe for some volcanic entertainment.
Reaching Vanuatu already took long enough,
then already the next day, after a short night in Port Vila,
I flew up to the Island of
Gaua, via Santo and then several bumpy
stops on the grass strips of the tiny islands of northern Vanuatu. Upon
approach, i could see the ash cloud from the volcano under a
blue sky and all seemed to be working out fine. However,
things only went downhill from there.
Due to the
evacuation of the population from the western part of the
island, a special unit of the police force is residing
there. Unfortunately, the commanding officers were
undoubtedly the most unpleasant and uncivilized people I was
to meet on the whole trip. They would not accept that I had
permission to go to the crater rim from the volcanologist
and simply would not come to one of the three (sometimes
working) phones on the island to receive this information.
Basically, the commander said he was very busy when I met
him and asked why he had not kept to an agreed appointment.
This was as he was being driven to the local Kava bar to get
stoned at 4:30
in the afternoon. Always seemed to be stuffing his face,
getting stoned or letting himself be driven up and down the
one road on the island. Given reports of harassment and
violence towards the local people and previous reports of
photographers being stopped at the airport and having money
extorted by the police for climbing the volcano I figured it
may be wiser to just give this one a miss since I was on my
own and had no reliable communication off the island. Very
frustrating to have come so far and then not be able to do
anything. Fortunately, the exceptional opportunity arose to
have a quick aerial view of the volcano. A flying doctor,
Mark Turnbull, is based on the island and given that he
liked to have some aerial photos of the newly constructed
school buildings I happily took these and as thanks was
given a brief fly-by of the crater.
The volcano
was clearly degassing at the time of the flight but no ash
emissions were visible.
Early the next
morning, I experienced my first earthquake (7.2 on the
Richter scale at its epicentre and maybe 4-5 on Gaua). I
hoped this would unsettle the volcano a bit but it seemed to
have no effect at all. I then lent a hand with the building
of the new hangar for the doctors plane before leaving Gaua
the next day.
Next in the plan was
Yasur volcano, one of the major attractions of
Vanuatu
due to its persistent strombolian activity. This was reached
following a stopover in Port Vila and a direct flight to
Tanna the next morning. The island has a tarmac runway and
has a reliable flight connection from Port Vila. Following a
2 hour drive alone rough roads I reached the Jungle Oasis
Lodge near the base of Yasur. This was to be my base for the
next week, as the plan to include the volcanoes on Ambryn
island in the trip was soon dropped in view of the poor
weather conditions at Yasur which made it much more
difficult than expected to get any decent images. On top of
that, the crater was mostly obscured by ash and / or
volcanic gases. The lodge was unfortunately also inhabited
with rats which ate my toothpaste and soap on day one and
gnawed through 3 water-bottles as well. These were to be a
continuous nuisance. However, this was more than compensated
by the great cooking of Jerry the chef which always provided
copious energy for the numerous walks up to the volcano.
Yasur volcano had
been raised to alert level 3 just days before my arrival and
was clearly in a heightened state of activity. Indeed,
reports of disruption due to the ash clouds from the volcano
were in the media during the first days of my visit there. Theoretically, the
crater area was off-limits to visitors. However, guides and
tourists were still climbing to the viewpoint on the rim and
sometimes wandering off either side thereof.
Fortunately, nobody
was injured, yet powerful explosions on one evening threw
numerous large rocks to a point where visitors had been
standing only hours earlier. During daylight, the volcanic
bombs can often be seen and avoided, but after dark the area
around the crater was extremely dangerous since only a
proportion of the bombs expelled were incandescent, the
others being entirely invisible at night. I thus withdrew
from the most dangerous areas at night and was continuously
wary of the risk of bombs during the day, narrowly avoiding
them on a couple of occasions. Visitors normally
focus on activity at the southern of the two adjoining
craters. The at least three active vents therein were
largely strombolian (with powerful shock-waves at times)
during the first days, but increasingly erupted dense ash
towards the end of my visit.
The more dangerous
northern crater basically had one main vent at its base.
This was fascinating in that there was no hole visible at
all and the base of the crater was basically like a flat
grey sandpit. However, eruptions with dense black ash-clouds
and dense rock fall frequently emanated from this vent,
usually starting with what could be described as a bubble of
ash. The dense ash-clouds also rapidly became statically
loaded and numerous discharges could be heard during
eruptions. This was a fantastic spectacle from the north rim
but clearly not without risk as these eruptions could be
directed laterally and regularly impacted the E flank of the
north crater. This was an area I visited only briefly, at
times preferring to ascend the cone and
walk around its base, rather than following the rim, due
to the high risk of volcanic bombs.
After about a week at Yasur, it was
time for the long journey back again. The volcano was
photographically difficult due to the conditions but a
tremendous and somewhat dangerous experience.
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