Photo of the Day 353

Aerial View of Islands, New Caledonia, France, 2000

Photograph by Peter Essick

This aerial view captures the aquamarine waves gently crashing onto an idyllic tropical island and islet in France's New Caledonia. This archipelago’s main island, Grande Terre, began to break away from Australia (formerly part of the supercontinent Gondwana) approximately 80 million years ago.

(Photo shot on assignment for, but not published in, "New Caledonia: France’s Untamed Pacific Outpost," May 2000, National Geographic magazine)