Trip To New Caledonia

Author : Touitou David, 2003

 

 

During september 2003, I had the chance to fly from Tahiti to New Caledonia Island, a wonderful shell collecting spot.
This was my first trip there, on the amazing island. I was hosted by a couple of friends, also collectors, I met online and they were really nice with me, taking me to their favourite shelling spots.
Of course, I will not mention any spot to preserve them from overcollecting. First of all, the island. the first impression, excepted the cold at this part of the year, is what a wide island… you can drive for hours without seeing anybody. This a real wild country. Of course most of the people there live near the main city of Noumea.
Another surprising thing is the diversity of the landscapes and so of the shores which creates many very different habitats. That one of the reason why New Caledonia have so many very local endemic seashells.

  

Concerning shell collecting, another advantage is the fact that you can collect during low tides on the reef itsefl without any need of snorkeling nor diving. You may walk on some spots, just in front of the beach and find amazing cone shells (such as giant Conus sugillatus and nice Conus ferrugineus f. chenui). We the nwalked at low tide but most of the time we snorkled and did some scuab too.
We only scuba in deep waters (50-60m) to catch few Conus moluccensis f. merleti, Conus circumcisus and Conus floccatus.

Here is a sum-up of the Cone Shells I collected during this short trip. Many species that I had already from Tahiti were not collected though.

And of course I had the "pleasure" to snorkle along with the local leathal sea-snakes…

   
Conus legatus

 
Conus marmoreus & Conus marmoreus with Conus legatus