{"id":4267,"date":"2011-12-29T11:36:13","date_gmt":"2011-12-29T03:36:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/walkabout.be\/?p=4267"},"modified":"2026-06-09T20:28:15","modified_gmt":"2026-06-09T12:28:15","slug":"walpole","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/walkabout.be\/?p=4267","title":{"rendered":"Walpole"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

29 December 2011 – It’s a small islet off the southern coast of New Cal, 100 miles south. 168\u00b0 57′ E, 22\u00b0 36′ S<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

We left on boxing day, it rained all night before. Three days later we reached the islet. Rough weather, rough seas, we haven’t had one day of calm waters.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On the day we arrived, the engine caved in. The next day we visited the island, an old guano farm from the 19th century. And we walked right into a fire-ants nest.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

During the fist week, I caught ciguatera from a barracuda. Miles from any hospital, with no engine, there was no way to be med-evac’ed so I spent the better part of that week in bed, vomiting and sleeping.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Then on the last day, we planned a night dive. Paul and I left the girls round 10PM aboard the kayak, towards the northern tip of the island, hoping the current would be better there. Nope. I got the anchor line entangled in my oxygen tank, then a few minutes later, an jellyfish (technically a zooid) got caught in my paddle and landed on my head. It was a Physalia physalis<\/a>, also known as Portuguese man o’ war. Tentacles around my neck, on my face and on my (shaved) head.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I thought I’d go into cardiac arrest, so I dropped all scuba gear, luckily none fell overboard. To avoid losing consciousness I started to paddle as hard as I could, which did not help Paul who had to fight both the current and my uncoordinated movements, but eventually he brought us back on board Velella.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Next morning Claire woke up: so, how was your dive ? Did you see anything good ?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Despite nearly dying twice, these were wonderful holidays. I’d go again in a heartbeat \ud83d\ude42 Thank you Fanny for your hospitality. My fondest memory was the sail back home, the ocean was calm, the sky was black and the moon full. While everyone slept, it was my shift to steer. I’ve never seen so many stars.<\/p>\n\n\nngg_shortcode_0_placeholder\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

29 December 2011 – It’s a small islet off the southern coast of New Cal, 100 miles south. 168\u00b0 57′ E, 22\u00b0 36′ S We left on boxing day, it rained all night before. Three days later we reached the islet. Rough weather, rough seas, we haven’t had one day of calm waters. On, Read More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":47356,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"Walpole","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[188,94,375],"tags":[91,92,98,93,90],"class_list":["post-4267","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-blog","category-new-caledonia","category-photos","tag-boats","tag-dive","tag-grande-terre","tag-sail","tag-velella"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/s27S7o-walpole","jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/walkabout.be\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/12\/walpole_006.jpg?fit=1072%2C712&ssl=1","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/walkabout.be\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4267","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/walkabout.be\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/walkabout.be\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/walkabout.be\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/walkabout.be\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4267"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/walkabout.be\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4267\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":47358,"href":"https:\/\/walkabout.be\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4267\/revisions\/47358"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/walkabout.be\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/47356"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/walkabout.be\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4267"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/walkabout.be\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4267"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/walkabout.be\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4267"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}