In the vast emptiness of the Pacific Ocean, tectonic movements construct or destroy islands. In the Tongan archipelago, two little-known animals have learnt to cope with these ephemeral lands: the sooty tern, a seabird that never dares wet its wings for fear of drowning and the Alvin shrimp, a blind crustacean that nonetheless manages to find its way around the abyss. When an underwater volcano becomes an island, the fates of these two living paradoxes are linked.