Underwater Post Office

Vanuatu Post has created an official Post Office with a difference. It is the world’s only Underwater Post Office. Vanuatu Post’s Underwater Post Office, found just off Hideaway Island near Port Vila, has quickly become one of the busiest post offices for postcards in the world.

Visitors from around the world have literally donned their masked snorkels, postcards in hand to experience the world’s first underwater post office.

And they have not been disappointed. The Post Office is only 50 metres offshore and at just three metres below the surface, is very accessible to all.

The fibreglass post office is surrounded by beds of coral and shoals of multi-coloured fish in a marine sanctuary off Hideaway Island on the outskirts of Port Vila.

Placed on site by Vanuatu Post, this official and currently unique postal location was opened for business on Monday May 26, 2003. A special flag floats above the site when there are postal workers in the water.

They provide you buy special waterproof postcards available from shops on terra firma in Port Vila.

Then one can scuba dive three metres down to have your postcards embossed with a waterproof stamp, specially created by Vanuatu Post to celebrate the 83-island archipelago's status as a marine paradise.

Out of hours the post cards can be posted in the underwater post box attached to the post office or taken to the main post office in town. All are guaranteed to receive the special cancellation from this unique underwater paradise before being delivered both locally and internationally.

It is all aimed at drawing attention to the diversity of Vanuatu's underwater world, and easily accessible dive sites. The landscape beneath the waters mirrors that found above: mountainous terrain with plunging cliffs, grottoes and overhangs, huge caves and intricate interconnecting underwater tunnels formed by frozen lava - and life abundant over all. Sea fans, soft corals and acropora gardens, plate corals and sponges and thousands of curious fish are there for all to see.

Vanuatu Post has released two stamp issues commemorating the world’s first underwater post office.