Week 6

On Tuesday the China Climb guys came down. The team consists of Simona (Romanian Manager), Ed (Australian Marine Biologist), Afa (Chinese climber and English speaker), Will (English kayaker and trekker), Mia (Malyasian marketing professional) and Neil (English kayaker). These guys will be here for two weeks, in that time they are going to use their expertise to improve a few of our programmes and to create some new ones. Out of the China Climb team only Afa and Neil are staying indefinitely.

The next day I headed to Riyuewan on a scouting mission to find a suitable location for surfing and camping trips. Whilst walking along the beach we came across the beach tourist section. This area consisted of the usual cheap tourist merchandise. Sadly it also consisted of some “photo opportunities”, i.e. get a photo of yourself in the surf straddling a horse, riding a camel or (shockingly) holding an endangered green turtle. Two Chinese men were parading the beach with a green turtle apiece, the creatures slung under their arms were like so much dead baggage. This disgusted me. On further investigation I found the turtles containment area – a small plastic bucket with some stagnant sea water half filling it. I took the opportunity to take some photos. This put me in a pretty bad mood (as well as Ed!) so we moved on before we did something drastic! The green turtle (Chelonia mydas) is a gentle coastal grazer that feeds primarily on sea grasses and alga. This reptile has been endangered for some time now due to over exploitation and loss of nesting grounds as well as mortality from trawls and gill nets. Such an animal plays a crucial role in shallow water ecosystems by keeping algae in check that may otherwise dominate.

We headed along the beach and explored amongst some rocks, to our delight we found some chitons clinging to abandoned oyster shells. We moved on and Ed spotted something amongst the shallows. On closer inspection we could see shell debris around the entrance of a small burrow that had been dug into the coral/sand debris. Naturally we explored the cavity with a small stick, in response an angry mantis shrimp (Order Stomatopoda) popped his front chelae and bulbous compound eyes out from within the tunnel and peered intently at us. I was very happy to see this little guy as he was on my list of “must see animals”. The mantis shrimp is unique. It’s forelimbs are tucked underneath the front of the body, they are under slung weapons of destruction, similar in form to the forelimbs of a preying mantis. When prey nears (or an intruder!) these limbs power out with a force strong enough to cut fish in half. Some shrimps have clubs instead of scythes, such bludgeons have been known to crack aquarium glass…

We left Riyuewan for Hou Hai beach. Here we surfed until dark and had lunch at a local restaurant. After dinner I headed home to e-mail my turtle pics to turtle 911, in the hope that they would seize the animals from the idiots at the tourist centre.

A couple of days later we headed to Wuzhishan on another scouting mission. Wuzhishan (5 finger mountain) is located toward the centre of Hainan Island and towers at 1800 meters. I scouted out some of the villages around the base of the mountain in the hope of finding a suitable place for a cultural trip. After asking some questions around town we headed to a local river for some rafting. Along the river I spied one of the endemic species to Hainan – the Hainan leaf warbler. After this we headed to the nearest town to find a hotel for the night.

On Sunday we scouted out a green tea plantation. To get to the plantation we had to traverse a lake on bamboo rafts. These craft are superb, consisting of 4 or 5 thick bamboo poles bound together by wire. Using a bamboo pole we were rowed across by one of the plantation field hands. The boss took us for a tour showing us how the tea is planted and how which parts of the tea tree are used for what – the blossoms are used for a special tea while the leaves are used for the bulk of the green tea. Wandering the site I spied a huge hawk moth, unfortunately it was too fast and agile for me to secure a photo.