Many a sailor has been heard to talk of respect for the ocean. The wind and the waves harness great power, and man can quickly realise just how small he is. Beneath the waves is another world again and guide books are quick to warn about the dangers of touching the wrong kind of coral and the necessity to avoid standing on stonefish or stingrays or jelly fish or sea snakes. They also offer helpful advice if running afoul of some of the more commonly known sea creatures. A guide we were perusing recently instructed that “In case of being attacked by shark, you should immediately get out of the water”. Who would have thought!? Oddly, the same advice is not given if one is bitten by a “non-aggressive” sea snake. We are, however, sea people. We’ve chosen to make it our home, and we are somewhat acclimatised to storms and sharks – although I doubt either will ever leave us entirely peaceful.
Today we ventured into sea and land.

We paddled ashore on our boards, intent on seeing what Ilot Signal (Marker Island) had to show us. During our initial exploration we were attacked by some kind of ball-of-thorns plant and I would later spend an hour pulling a hundred thorns from our crocs. Technically someone else’s crocs, but if the person who left a black pair of size 10 crocs aboard would like to claim them back, you know where to find me.
After dodging the thorn balls, we found ourselves on some kind of track that encircled the island. Michelle was walking timidly. She didn’t sleep too well last night. After seeing a couple of snakes in the sea, her subconscious was still processing and they slithered into her dreams and even sent her checking in odd places for stowaways. I have now learnt that whilst walking on a deserted island, it is not humorous to point at an S-shaped stick and loudly declare it to be a snake! I didn’t stay in the dog box for long. We rounded a bend and came across a magical little mini-lagoon where we stopped to take the obligatory photos. As we left the mini lagoon and headed back on to the track, what goes around came around. Territorial New Caledonian attack birds came squawking and swooping down at me. Why me? Was it the hat, or just the fact that I was the leader of our party? …or did they somehow know about my little snake joke? We moved on quickly and once free of attack bird territory, began to enjoy the uniqueness of the island again. The sandy track was riddled with holes as big as your head. It looked like a combination of sand crabs and erosion… Of course, Michelle wondered if they were snake holes! Then it happened… Whilst enjoying the view, the path under Michelles foot gave way and she fell into a shallow hole. She fell forward and then bounced up quickly, hopping and babbling and squealing. It seems she had fallen into one of the mysterious holes and her hands had landed either side of a snake skin. The snake was nowhere to be seen, but after a quick second look at the deflated snake clothes, we moved on quickly.
With her bird-like vision, Michelle then claimed to have spotted an eagle. It turns out it was actually an Osprey, but who knows these things? It was a huge carnivorous bird gliding about on the wind and carrying a small tree in its talons. At first we were confused about its cargo, but then old eagle-eyes spotted the nest. This was a birds nest in the same way that Buckingham Palace is a council flat. If the bird wasn’t a little daunting before, the fact that we could probably sleep cosily in the nest was enough. We moved on quickly! Why do I always have to walk in front? I stopped very suddenly and we both took a half step back. A moment before I had walked into it, the light had bounced on a web that hung across the path like a zip line. I don’t mind admitting I’m squeamish around spiders (among other things) and I was happy to duck under this web and generally keep well clear of its maker.
“Good call” eagle-eyes called out behind me. I turned around and followed her gaze. A spider, bigger than my hand, was crawling quickly away from her foiled trap. She sat, watched and waited at a safe distance. After ducking under the web herself, Michelle remarked “I think we would have fed that guy for a week!”. I shuddered, and we moved on… quickly.
Our path turned down to the beach where we came across another man sized bird nest and we eventually discovered the chimney structure that gives the island its name. An elevated wooden pathway then led us over the eroding crab holes and under a canopy of trees and led us back to our paddle boards. Land time was over! We paddled back to the boat, grabbed our masks and snorkels and jumped over board. The water is surprisingly cool here, but there is nothing disappointing about the reef. We swam with large tropical fish of all varieties and messed about with brightly coloured schools of smaller fish. The turtles regarded us with little concern and were quite happy for us to swim up close and personal. A shark meandered by and made a close arc around us before carrying on his way. We only looked back once or twice to check.
As we made our way back to the boat through mountains and tunnels of coral, we discovered it must be turtle nap time. Several times we came across a turtle, wedged in amongst the coral and lying motionless.
If the wise old turtles say it’s nap time, then nap time it must be! We are, after all, sea people.
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