Day 422: November 26, 2025 – Mystery Island, Vanuatu

We’ve been through all kinds of ports on this journey. In some, we were dwarfed by other monster-size cruise ships. Others were commercial ports, stacked high with cargo containers. In some, we could step out directly into the city center. But this one was a first for us: an uninhabited island.

The tiny island known as Mystery Island has no permanent residents, although the land is owned by people who live on nearby islands. Island legend has it that they don’t want to live on this island because it is haunted at night, offering one of several explanations for its name. When the occasional cruise ship arrives, they come from the adjacent islands to offer beach massages, local crafts, and fresh lobster & coconut.

Other than some palm huts, the only infrastructure is an airport runway, used as a landing strip by allied forces during World War II. The runway can’t be seen from the sea, so another explanation for the name is that the Japanese were confused about where planes were coming from and referred to it as a mystery. These days, the only action you’ll see on the overgrown runway is a gathering of Pacific Golden Plovers.

There is no pier for a ship our size, so we anchored at sea and took a smaller tender boat between ship and shore.

The island is small enough that you can circumnavigate it in less than an hour.

With few humans around to disturb them, large spiders with enormous webs have the run of the forest.