Summer Calm in the New Caledonia Lagoon
par Richard Chesher
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Photo panoramique par
Richard Chesher
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Summer Calm in the New Caledonia LagoonThe World > Les Iles de l'Océan Pacifique > Mélanesie > Nouvelle Calédonie |
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The crying sounds of puffins nesting on Ilot Mato wake up on the 23rd of March at 05:30. They cry like a moaning baby - a very erie sound. Then it dawns on me that there is absolute quiet - except for the birds ashore. Not a sound. No wind, no waves, not a peep from the sea birds that typically start work at dawn. I get up and go on deck to look around. It is so calm the sea is a mirror reflecting the cloudy sky. And there is no horizon at all. Now most sensible people would smile and go back to bed - but I quickly go below to grab my camera and then - on tip toe so I don't make even a slight wave on the sea - I take a sphere image of this amazing morning. It is perfect for the theme of World Wide Panorama's current global snapshot of our planet - "limits." I will call it "Zero Limit Dawn Horizon" A horizon without limits extending around our planet in every direction. For me it is the dawn of a very active day because when it is really calm like this we can motor slowly over the reefs with the dinghy and see the coral reefs and fish as if there was no water at all.
Also, when it is calm like this the surface of the sea is like a mirror when you look up at it from underwater. I will take some underwater sphere images with the mirrored surface reflecting the reefs. If, that is, the dawn calm lasts long enough. Actually I have three likely spots picked out already. There is a coral reef nursery area that we explored yesterday, and a colony of clown fish, a lovely thicket of bright blue staghorn coral out by the pass. They would all be fantastic with a mirror above them. We'll head off for a day of fun in the sun right after breakfast.
A school of anchovies swarms together, forming a scintillating mass attacked from above and below in ...
New Caledonia Anchorage Aerial PanoramaThis New Caledonia Anchorage sphere image was taken from a kit...
Massive corals, like this 6 meter sphere of Porites, grow between 5 to 10mm per year making this one ...
Coral reefs are all about symbiosis - the art of living together. When we look at an underwater scene...
About 40 km southeast of Noumea Ilot Mato Anchorage marks the entrance into the vast southern coral r...
The Leopard Shark, Stegostoma fasciatus, reportedly eats small fish and molluscs. Molluscs probably m...
There's this colony of clownfish that lives just on the crest of the fringing reef at Mato. Two speci...
There is something very special about the shallow lagoon sand and coral flats of New Caledonia. You'd...
Ilot Mato is in the southern part of the largest coral reef lagoon in the world. It is part of the Ne...
A family of ospreys (Pandion haliaetus melvillensis) live on Ilot Mato in the great south lagoon of N...
Une Nation du Pacifique Sud, la plus proche de l'Australie et de la Nouvelle Zélande. Une chaîne de hautes montagnes, d'impressionnantes cascades et de nombreuses rivières avec une flore et une faune variée et souvent unique au monde - C'est le paradis de la randonnée pédestre ou équestre ainsi que de l'excursion en véhicule tout-terrain.
Le plus grand lagon du monde, peuplé d'une faune tropicale endémique particulièrement riche, avec des récifs et des populations de poissons rares et protégées. Des centaines d'épaves sous-marines, des îlots, de nombreuses plages de sable blanc.
La population calédonienne est issue d'un large brassage culturel : Mélanésiens, Européens, Polynésiens, Vietnamiens, Chinois, Japonais, et la langue et culture française. La Nouvelle-Calédonie est dotée de très bonnes infrastructures médicales et sociales.
Une infrastructure touristique qui offre un large éventail de types d'hébergement allant de l'hôtel 5 étoiles au camping aménagé en passant par l'accueil en milieu tribal, les chambres d'hôtes, les refuges et l'auberge de jeunesse.
