Champagne Beach fizzes. As the tide drops, gas seeps up through the sand of this small bay on the east coast of Espiritu Santo and the shallows bubble like a freshly poured glass — the effect that gave the beach its name. Where the gas comes from is not settled: some accounts trace it to volcanic rock beneath the lagoon, on an island arc still being shoved upward by two colliding plates, and others to a freshwater spring that surfaces through the sand at the eastern end. Vanuatu's tourism office offers a third story altogether, and says the coastline itself was shaped like an old champagne flute. What is certain is the setting. Barely 350 metres of coral-white sand curve between two forested headlands, and the bay turns its back on the south-east trade winds that scour this coast for much of the year, so the water lies flat and stays clear enough to read the sand dozens of metres out.
Wade in and the bottom slopes away so gently that you are still standing a long way from shore. Snorkellers make for the coral bommies in the southern corner, where reef fish gather and a turtle sometimes passes; the middle of the bay is plain sand. Behind the beach, big trees hold a band of shade over a grass clearing, and the ground itself belongs to the families of Hog Harbour village, who own it under kastom title and collect a fee at the gate. That fee is the village's income from the beach, and these days much of it arrives by ship. Champagne Bay is a scheduled cruise call, and on those days tenders come ashore at the little pier, market stalls go up on the grass, and the crescent fills. Any other day, most of it is yours.