Sailing into the volcano

As we sailed toward Rabaul, the ship visited the island of Garove, sailing into its huge caldera.  We were in deep water and the cliffs of the caldera towered hundreds of metres above us.  When the captain sounded the horn, it reverberated around and around the large caldera.

                                                              Sailing into the caldera.

                                               Some of the local people came out to look.

Arriving in Rabaul, we were indeed sailing into another caldera.  The old city was decimated by volcanic eruptions in 1994 but has been rebuilt further from the volcano.  The blast that created the enormous caldera where the port is located occurred about 1,500 years ago.

We had arrived on Independence Day and were greeted by a local choir rather than the nubile dancers from our last two stops.

                                                     The choir greeted us with hymns.

We were soon ashore and found a local tour to take us sightseeing.  Our first stop was the Japanese submarine base out along a dusty, rutted road.  We clambered around the rocks to see the supply tunnels.  The water drops down immediately to a depth of 300 metres where the submarines hid.

                                                     At the Japanese submarine base.

We drove to a viewpoint where we could see out over the caldera with our ship dominating the port.  Close by is the seismic monitoring station where we talked to the vulcanologist and examined the monitoring equipment..

                                                             The Rabaul caldera.

Our next stop was Admiral Yamamoto’s bunker where we climbed through the tunnels until we could not see anything in front of us.  We toured the nearby museum housed in the New Guinea Club with its collection of war memorabilia.

                                                 The market amongst the war machines!

We drove through the ruined old town of Rabaul out to the former airport.  There is no sign left of any infrastructure at the airport and the whole of Chinatown has disappeared under the ash.  Some derelict buildings remain in the town, many just a shell.  Hard to believe that only 5 people died!

                                    We were close to the volcano that rises above the old town.

At the nearby hot springs in water temperature of 96 degrees Celsius, it was too hot for a dip but they were cooking eggs!  The Japanese had built bathhouses in this area during their occupation.

                                                        Gail at the hot springs.

We sailed out of the caldera past the two active volcanoes and the ship turned 360 degrees to give everyone a view.  By the time we turned to head for the Solomon Islands, the sun was setting over the caldera.

                                                    The two volcanoes of Rabaul.

                                                        Sunset over the caldera.