Port Villa or ‘Villa’ as it’s known locally, is the capital of Vanuatu. The town itself isn’t particularly pretty, but it has a buzz about it and it’s beautifully situated on a natural harbour. Shopping in Vanuatu carries it’s own challenges and Lu’s once weekly shopping trip can end up taking most of the day. There are supermarkets but they’re not always well stocked and basics such as tinned tomatoes can disappear off the shelves for months at a time. There are local peculiarities – for example, the best local prawns can only be sourced from the upstairs offices of a local builder’s merchant.

The daily fresh produce market is wonderful, with a variety of local fruits and vegetables colourfully displayed. Bananas, papayas, limes, coconuts, oranges all piled up alongside sweet potatoes, plantain, yams and avocados. If you’re lucky, you’ll find pineapples, green beans and pak choi but they might be sold out, or perhaps none came in today. The sellers stand between tables or more often than not lounge on the floor: you put down your coins and a hand appears mysteriously from below.  The fresh cut flowers are stunning, too, and inexpensive. They’re so exotic, I’ve don’t known their names since I haven’t seen them before.

After visiting the supermarket, the market, the hardware store, the off licence and the shop that sells mixers, it feels like time for lunch. There are some lovely cafes along the front with great views over the harbour.

There’s also a dive shop called Big Blue. David and I signed up for a double dive and took a boat out into the harbour. We dived a wreck called Konanda which was deliberately submerged in the harbour as a diving site. After the splendour of the Coolidge on Santo, this felt quite tame, although I did venture to go inside the wreck and swim about – my first penetration!

Then for a total contrast, we headed out to a coral reef to swim along a spectacular coral wall and from there to a double bommy with huge corals and plentiful fish.

On Friday night, we booked a table at The Beach Bar, a popular restaurant on the outskirts of Mele facing the sea. I was amazed by the number of white people there, most of them families with kids. According to Tim and Lu, they were mostly expats rather than tourists. The food was simple fare – mostly pizzas and burgers – and the cocktails were cheap, but they were not the main attraction. We’d come to see the fire show.

The show lasted a full hour and demonstrated the skills of an entirely local, Ni-Van cast of fire artists. The crowd clapped and cheered as they showed off their daring and athleticism, matching each piece to the tempo and style of the music. At the end of the night, the performers invited the audience to take to the stage and dance. The energy and enthusiasm of the performers was impossible to resist – at least for me and Lu. David and Tim did their best to look as if they’d never seen us before as we jumped up and took to the stage.