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Second
trip to New-Caledonia - Christmas 2005 Family trip but still hunting
for Cone shells...
That's
the second time I have the chance to travel to this very nice island.
But this time it was not a pure shell
collecting trip... it was a family trip. I managed to collect some
cone shells though.
The
first shell hunting party was on the East coast, night scuba at
deaph of 6-10m. It was supposed to be a good spot for rare cone
shells such as Conus bullatus, Conus ammiralis and Conus
crocatus. The shells were not out this night. After one hour
and a half of shell hunting we came back with two amazing Conus
tesselatus and a Conus litteratus.
After,
we staid almost all the time near Bourail (West coast) and went
three time scuba outside the reef at deaph of 50m. The first dive
was the best and I managed to find a dead Conus aureus, pieces of
another C. aureus and a dead small Conus floccatus.
The next dive we changed spot and just found fragments of Conus
ammiralis at 55m. The third dive showed nothing but a dead small
Conus legatus at 30m. We were diving for the local variation of
Conus moluccensis called "grondini" but we did
not even see a fragment...
We
managed to go to the reef once and we saw few coneshells there :
huge Conus marmoreus on eggs, Conus textile, Conus striatus,
Conus episcopatus, Conus vitulinus, Conus rattus and Conus
imperialis.
Bourail
is well-known for its surprising endemic variations of Conus
marmoreus named suffusus and "bastards". But the place
is now marine reserve and is protected. Fortunately on the 10 days
of hunting there we caught many empty (dead) shells there, some
are GEM specimens and are really amazing !
We found also a nice Conus quercinus
and Conus eburneus there. Conus quercinus was common and
grouping while breeding. The spot owns of course the classic Conus
marmoreus and the suffusus var. seems to be less rare
than the "bastard" one.
On
the last dive we were visited at 50m by a curious Reef white tip
shark and a gray shark and while waiting at 3m we saw a big Bullshark
one. During snorkeling I saw several leathal sea-snakes which always
surprise you !
The
country amazed us so much...
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