Listing to Port

1. The Boredom Isles, Central Pacific. Although nominally claimed by the United Kingdom, the Boredom Isles have struggled to be occupied by all but the world’s most rapacious colonists. The Boredom Isles are so dull that a lighthouse constructed there in 1826 fell asleep, ejecting its entire crew into the sea where they voluntarily stayed for three days, struck by the relative interestingness of the local marine life. Based on a 1956 census of flags on the shore, the isles are believed to have been discovered but then forgotten about at least twelve times.
2. Saint Genesius, Southern Ocean. Of fifteen people who have stood on the inhospitable shores of Saint Genesius, fully twelve have been injured by flying elephant seals. It appears that the island’s unexplored rocky interior contains a number of large, tilted slabs on which the seals like to sun themselves but which, under the right circumstances, become uncomfortably slippery. The right circumstances appear to include when the seals are alarmed or curious at the entrance of humans into the island’s only narrow bay. A series of unfortunate geological features ensures that slipping seals are funnelled directly towards any incomers.
3. Incitatus and Bucephalus, Southern Atlantic Ocean. These obscure twin islands, several thousand kilometres south of the Azores, were discovered by Henry the Navigator in 1437 and claimed for Portugal. Twenty years later, the mutinous crew of the Cruzado, a private mercantile exploration vessel, were put ashore there and abandoned. The advent of a human population spurred the islands’ resident population of crabs, who did not think of themselves as particularly Portuguese, to mutate into a vast interlocking multi-crab intelligence. Little is known of the fate of the Cruzado’s crew. The lest known expedition to the islands, in 1465, noted the presence of a half-built raft, some cooking artifacts, and a fifty metre tall crab monster with hundreds of oddly human eyes. Since then, even satellites have tended to look in the other direction.
4. Warlock Shoals, North Pacific. Warlock shoals has only existed as an island since 1955, when an earthquake raised the seamount on which it stands by a few metres. Initially it was claimed by the United States of America, who subsequently obliterated the island by carrying out a nuclear test on it. A further earthquake raised the remains of the island above sea level again for six months in 1958. During this time, the island was claimed as a new territory by the Soviet Union, who carried out a further nuclear test which once again obliterated it. In 2014, yet another earthquake raised the shoals above sea level. Although as yet unclaimed, they are believed to have been visited by a delegation from the North Korean army. Warlock Shoals is possibly the world’s most pissed-off island.
5. Frigate Mount, Southern Indian Ocean. Frigate Mount from a distance is one of the ocean’s more unusual sights. This smooth, white island is shaped exactly like an enormous egg, standing on one end on the surface of the sea. A rocky base is sometimes visible in rough seas. The main body of the island is believed to be the result of thousands of years of guano deposits from pelagic seabirds. It is difficult to see how its unusual shape could have come about other than by a deliberate attempt at sculpture by the resident bird population. The island’s inhabitants do seem to be unusually solemn and devotional as seabirds go, leading some to speculate that it is some kind of avian religious site. Another theory runs that the island is in reality a giant egg and its guano covering functions mainly as insulation and disguise.  
6. La Baleine Island, France. Unusually for an isolated island, La Baleine is situated slightly South of Central Paris. It is perhaps the only entirely landlocked island in the world, without a single sea border. As such, most visitors to La Baleine are completely unaware that they have stepped foot on one of the world’s least-known islands. Interestingly, La Baleine’s unusual nature means it has been independently discovered at least fifty times. It has been claimed by at least fourteen countries, including an ill-fated period as an independent republic which ended when French special forces were smuggled over the border in a tree on wheels.