A new island appears!

A big topic of conversation in the village of Lutes was the curious arrival of a new 'island'. In the past three weeks an area of shallow water within the reef suddenly became shallower and a perfect, white sandspit rose up out of the water. We can only assume that this was the result of seismic activity - there was an earthquake in late May and we even felt a tremor on the boat last week.

At high water a little island, perhaps 50m by 10m, stands abut half a metre clear of the water and at low tide there's an area about 500m by 25m showing. We were invited to go out with the owners of the reef (every bit of sea shore is 'owned' by someone here) to witness the naming ceremony, complete with a blessing by the pastor.

The day started with a competition to see how many people would fit into a dinghy!

The official welcome onto the island; the pastor is in the foreground

Black and white footprints in the sand

Our proud hosts

a locally-built fibreglass sailing canoe brought more people

at low tide

Graham plotting the island on GPS - it'll be interesting to compare future plots to see if the upward movement is continuing

The island has been slightly curiously-named as 'Niel Fat Sunburn Floating Island'! Niel is the family name of the owners and they hope that this new beach will attract visitors - it certainly might be a great launching spot for kite-surfing.