As we’ve previously, and somewhat floridly, reported, a new island has surfaced in the South Pacific, between Tonga and Fiji at approximately the location given by esteemed American author Howard Phillips Lovecraft for his accursed cyclopean sunken city of R’lyeh.
The crew of the yacht Maiken were the first to discover a strange phenomenon; the surface of the sea was literally covered in a blanket of floating stone. Volcanic pumice is very light, and as you can see from the pictures here, has the appearance of a rocky desert when in fact it’s more like a deceptively solid-looking and treacherous foam.
August 12, 2006, first sighting of the Stone Sea
Bizarre, eh boys and girls? I’m wondering if CS Lewis ever saw something like this before writing the end of The Voyage of the Dawn Treader. They’re not lilies, but it’s very reminiscent of the scenes at the end of the world, with slightly more ominious overtones.
The next day, as the Maiken pushed forward, clear of the strange illusory desert at last, they saw smoke on the horizon and, being inquisitive sorts to say the least, investigated.
Could it be?
A lava eruption from the new land.
Now THAT is eerie, ladies and gentlemen. That is eerie.
Imagine how many people, in all of history, recorded and unrecorded, have had the opportunity to watch the birth of a new land. I’m glad the crew of the Maiken had the courage and curiosity to move forward when so many would have turned back. The mysteries of the earth are profound and glorious, and “awe” is, after all, the root of the word awful. Those who would look upon such things are marked forever.
Maiken‘s photoblog, with much more, here.
raincoaster 
Ooh that’s interesting, I’ve ripped that off straight away. Sadly I don’t publish my blog to the world so don’t expect swathes of folk redirected here, and it is in a blog based around religion. Oh well, it’s my blog and i like it.
PS: I like yours too, hence ripping off the occasional thingy. Hope you don’t mind. PLease say if you do.
No, of course I don’t mind. But what do you mean you don’t publish your blog to the world? If it’s not private and password-only, it’s public. You don’t whore it out like I do; that’s different!
Yes, if you didn’t know where to look you wouldn’t find it. But I do put the URL on my BJ comments so I suppose that means I am slightly tarty, but only when it comes to Boris Johnson.
Boris for PM.
Whenever I think of his ‘hissing snake’ I think of the adult love interest in Monsters Inc. Remeber the hairdo?
Beautiful pictures…must have been astounding to see.
But something tells me that ain’t Aslan’s Country up ahead. I been brushin’ up on my rebel yell but now I’ll have to practice R’Lyehbel R’Lyehlls. Or as close as my human instrument can approximate, of course.
Exactly. As for me, I’ve used Easter Egg dye to make a pentagram on the rug, and lugged the computer into the middle of it. I ain’t crazy enough to be taking any chances!
Huh?
(I need coffee.)
You need a copy of The Call of Cthulhu, by Howard Philips Lovecraft. It’s online somewhere.
Oh that’s what I need and there was me thinking more money would do the trick. Like, a LOT more money. I’d think about divorcing an aged popsinger but I’d have to sleep with him first (and being blonde and beautiful would secure an invitation to do that, oh well, one less thing I have to worry about then).
Mills is kinda horsefaced, though. You just have to be really, really good at sex from what I hear.
You cannot buy off Cthulhu. But you can buy off Heather Mills.
Really good at sex huh? Where did you hear that? And why am I suddenly thinking of Chris Hitchens and ‘American Apple Pie’? I bet he gets propositioned A LOT. Researching that article must have been hell.
I think Hitchens doesn’t get propositioned nearly as much as he’d like you to think. In North America we don’t think of journalists, particularly chubby, non-tv journalists, as glamorous the way you do there. I mean, even POLLY FUCKING TOYNBEE is considered to be somebody.
Whoah! Personally I don’t think these people are glamorous, to me they’re just people, like us, who happened to chose journalism rather than engineering or teaching. (Hmn, maybe that’s where I’m going wrong in their eyes) But it’s true that the culture in Britain is so media driven that when some ill-educated bimbo fumbles under a blanket on reality tv then she’s a ‘celebrity’ and the ill-educated frump who got into parliament on a party ticket is a star! (Boris would be a star selling newspapers, not just writing in them) I think you’re right “I think Hitchens doesn’t get propositioned nearly as much as he’d like you to think” but I like him and that article amused me. I very much like his book ‘young contrarian’.
Yes, that is where you’re going wrong in their eyes. Must suck up more.
I’ve wanted to borrow the book Young Contrarian, plus the evisceration of Kissinger (who’s probably next on the Iain Dale Luv Fest) but my friends won’t relenquish custody for long enough.
Yeah I don’t suck up nearly enough (and I quite fancied having a go at ‘American Apple Pie’, oh well, too late now) I seriously recommend ‘Young Contrarian’ AND ‘The Abolition of Britain’ which little bro tells me you can get on inter-library loan in the UK, don’t know if you have that in Canada?
We have libraries here. I’m sure I can dig it out.
Sorry, didn’t mean to suggest you didn’t have libraries, just didn’t know whether they had the facility that would transfer books for you. Be warned about the Abolition of Britain – little bro is very good at causing emotion, I’m very careful with books and I literally (haha) threw it across the room. I’ve got Chris’s ‘Love, Poverty and War’ but I want to read Prof. Dawkins’ The God Delusion first. Am also quite keen on The Hitch’s book on Paine – who knows what Santa might bring! And roll on spring so I can try out my birthday present, that’s going to be fun :-)
What is your birthday present? I fell like I’m missing something here.
It was such a surprise, a BIG one. I think I’m going to have to do a post on my blog to answer your question raincoaster as you need pictures, and to keep in mind that Britain is really quite small, congested, with tight roads and people living too close together. Yes, I think a post is in order, I’ll do it tommorow if I can. But in the meantime, it’s not huge but it’s big to me, it’s white and we just love it.
You got a polar bear? KEWL!
We’ve called it Abigail.
I’ll post pictures when I’m in a fluffier mood.
I called mine Paksu. Anybody get the reference?
Um, no, unless you mean the thin/thick thing? Or said backwards could be the small-mouthed frog saying ice cap?
I have to say the bloke rage on the paedophile thread has been a bit….
The quality of debate over at Boris’ has degraded to the point where I no longer wish to be there. Not only are most of the newbies less intelligent than they should be, they’re hostile, defensive and bigoted. It seemed to start with the England flag thread, and it’s only gotten worse from there. And they’re back on smoking again; how unspeakably boring. Haven’t we HAD that conversation a billion million times?
I have faith that the conversation that used to be there exists somewhere in cyberspace, and I’m looking for it. I don’t really, in the meantime, find any compelling reason to post at Boris’ site.
Paksu is one of the North Polar Bear’s nephews in the Father Christmas Letters.