Maw of the Beast

Now I’m not one for keeping any sort of Bucket List, but if I did I would have had near the top of the list going to the edge of an active volcano and peeing in. So, in that vein we headed to the tour up Mount Yasur here on Tanna Island, Vanuatu.

At the base of the low mountain they do an introduction to the volcano trip and have the local village group do a ‘kastom’ dance asking permission from the local gods for a safe voyage to the volcano. Kastom means customary or tradional culture in the Bislama langauge. The scene is a little contrived with each tourist group holding a sign indicating what country they are from, but the dance is real.

The 30 or so of us jumped on the trucks at the base camp and had a fast ride up the mountain in the late afternoon. Then a brief hike to the rim for a safety briefing from our guide which consisted of the advice if there is a big bang and a lot of lava bombs coming your way, do not run. You can see the smoke and steam rising here in the back ground as our guide gives us the low-down.

As you walk up to the edge of the crater rim in the day light you start to see the red glow from below. There is a muffled roar coming out of the crater that sounds like continuous surf breaking. The sulfuric smoke comes and goes as the wind changes. There are occasional loud explosions.

The explosions shoot lava bombs hundreds of feet into the air.

As the afternoon gets darker the crater turns into a glowing fiery pit

Sometimes you feel just way too close to this energy. A quick look at the two guides we had was somewhat reassuring as they didn’t seem to blink, even when the bombs were landing high up the crater edge. They did mention something in the briefing about safety being the most important thing.

As we watched new vents would start up and blow hot holes into the crater base. We could see the molten lava churning inside them.

Think of Roman candle fireworks the size of a a very large warehouse building (just oneof the vents) early on a 4^th July evening.

When we were on this edge of the crater the wind was probably gusting to 30kts. The fine lava sand was brutal on the eyes, hence the safety goggles. It was cold on the edge, even though you had a direct connection to the heat of the central earth.

The Yasur volcano is a ‘stratovolcano’, one built up from many layers of hardened lava. When we dinghy around the anchorage at Port Resolution you can clearly see the stratification along the north bay edge which is the volcano side.

This is the birthplace of all the Pacific islands, along the edge of the Ring of Fire. The Hawaiians say the angry goddess, Pele, inhabits these volcanoes. Thanks to our friend Mike up in the San Juans for letting me borrow his phrase, we were truly gazing into the ‘maw of the beast’.
Paul