Klasles · Champagne Beach · 🇻🇺 Vanuatu

Champagne Beach

A dazzling white-sand beach on the island of Espiritu Santo

Champagne Beach with bright turquoise water and white sand, Vanuatu

Photo · Wikimedia Commons

Wat is het?

Champagne Beach is one of the most beautiful beaches in the Pacific Ocean. It sits on Espiritu Santo, Vanuatu's largest island, and is famous for its powdery white sand and water so clear and bright it almost looks like it is glowing. The beach got its name from tiny natural bubbles that sometimes rise up from the seafloor - just like bubbles in a fizzy drink!

Vertel me meer

The sand at Champagne Beach is so white and fine that it squeaks a little when you walk on it. The colour comes from tiny pieces of coral and shell ground smooth by the waves over thousands of years. The water in the bay is several shades of blue at once - pale aqua near the shore where it is shallow, then deeper turquoise further out.

Just offshore, coral reefs provide a home for hundreds of types of fish. Snorkellers can float face-down and watch parrotfish, angelfish and sea turtles moving beneath them. The reef is so shallow in places that the coral almost touches the surface, which is why the water looks almost see-through.

Tall coconut palms lean out over the sand, giving patches of shade. Local families often sell fresh coconuts nearby - the juice inside a green coconut is cool, sweet and very refreshing after a swim. People in Vanuatu have grown and used coconuts for centuries in cooking, building roofs and making oil.

The little bubbles that give the beach its name come from volcanic gases seeping gently up through cracks in the seafloor. They are harmless and tickle your skin if you sit in shallow water near the source - a fun and very unusual sensation.

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Gespreksvragen

  1. 01Why do you think the water near a coral reef looks so many different shades of blue and turquoise?
  2. 02Champagne Beach gets its name from something in nature. Can you think of other places named after things they look or feel like?
  3. 03If you could snorkel above a coral reef, what creature would you most want to see - and why?
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Klasactiviteit

Drop a few raisins into a glass of clear fizzy water and watch them ride the bubbles up and down. Draw a diagram showing how the bubbles lift the raisin, then compare it to how the volcanic bubbles rise through the sand at Champagne Beach. Label your diagram.