Sanya Things to Do

While the main fish wharf is at the end of Heping Lu, further south at the end of Jiangang Lu is the ferry - or ferries - that will carry you and your load 150 metres across the neck of the Sanya River to the Luhuitou peninsular. The creek is made narrower by the multitude of boats, large and small, moored three or four deep on either side. In the main channel, a constant procession of boats pass up and down, the smaller one person rowed boats bobbing in the wake of the bigger vessels.
Along the quayside, men repair and splice brightly coloured ropes and string buoys onto lines. Opposite, marine chandlery shops do a roaring trade in the latest Japanese radar and GPS equipment. By the boats, men sell fruit from a small stand. It smells of the sea, and diesel oil, fish and rope. A pleasant walk and friendly people: the people who have inherited the mantle of the people of Yazhou.

Sadly, the reefs are described by ICRAN as "mostly destroyed, but some recovering and good by Chinese standards".
Pollution from the Sanya River is polluting Sanya Bay, and the water quality is deteriorating. The biggest problem is that corals need nutrient-poor water and the high levels of nutrients in sewage and agricultural run-off add significant nutrients: there has been substantial bleaching of coral as a result.
There is one specific project worth mentioning: the attempt to recover 1000 square metres of the reef at Xidao, using artificial reefs.

So should you contribute to the tourism that is slowly killing the reefs? Difficult question: the tour vessels and dive trips provide jobs for local people, so reducing the fishing and collecting of coral. But then are these companies acively contributing to repairing the amage they have largely caused?
I decided not to go out and swim off the reefs - just a personal choice.

Many come to Sanya to scuba-dive and snorkel over the coral reefs. However, poor tourism planning means that the coral reefs are being damaged, although the establishment of a Marine Protection Area in 1990 is helping to slow the rate of damage.
The 5,500 hectare reserve contains at least 110 species of reef-building corals and 30 species of soft coral, including species of Acropora, Porites luteu, and Goniastrea aspra down to 2 metres. Coverage is as high as 70% in the bigger bays. These reefs create a home for 300 species of fish and 300 invertebrates, with 60 large benthic algae also found here.

There are three main areas of coral reef:
- around the islands to the west of Sanya city
- around the Luhuitou peninsular and either end of Dadonghai
- in the centre-west section of Yalong Bay
In 1996, the Yalong Bay Coral Reef Protection and Tourist Development Site was set up, and the facilities and services replicated later in Dadonghai Bay and at Ximaozhou. These monitor the three part marine reserve, which receives no funding from Beijing - it is to be hoped that local businesses and hotels provide financial support, but I certainly saw no evidence of this at hotels in the area. Considering that 1.5 million people visit Sanya annually, and a good proportion of them visit the reefs, I would hope that there is some form of mechanism so that people impacting the reefs actually pay!

At the western end of Heping Lu, lies the entrance to the fish wharf. A narrow dark street, hemmed in by tall apartments. Towards the end, it opens out and crosses disused railway tracks and enters the harbour. The smell of fish gets stronger; to the right a fish-packing factory is a mass of activity. Inside, women in blue boiler-suits and multi-coloured rubber boots slosh around in two inches of entrails and goo.
The street further opens out onto a wide, hot, sunny quayside. Here all of humanity is in action: everyone with a specific job. In the water, a constant succession of improbable boats shuffle around until they can squeeze up to the quayside. Immediately, a gang of unloaders leaps aboard and form a chain to move the heavy plastic boxes full of glittering silver fish. Up above them, women drag the boxes into different piles. Nearby, three older women direct bicycle women into place and crates are taken to a weighing station. Another gang of women are called over to check the quality, and all manner of paperwork is signed off under umbrellas, and tickets for this and dockets for that pass hands.
Another set of bicycle women slowly cart the fish off the quayside to processing and packing plants in among the buildings. All the while, an old man sits watching the scene silently, occasionally gazing out to the vast armada of fishing boats tied up together like a floating breakwater a hundred metres out.

Sanya city is built on a long peninsula, with an island behind it. The older city sits at the southern tip of the peninsula, with newer buildings on the island and spreading onto the mainland to the east. The main beach hotel area is at Dadonghai to the east and Yalong Bay to the west. In wandering around the city, I saw few tourists. Like resorts the world over, the tourists stay in their enclaves and are bussed to the sights, rushing through the city in air-conditioned luxury.
Downtown suffers from poorly planned earlier investment, and like Haikou to the north, there are plenty of mouldy, half-finished hotel tower block skeletons lining the streets. Older buildings can still be found, but not easily. Two beautiful older shophouses sit halfway down Shengli Lu, which runs parallel to Jiefang Lu, the north-south backbone street of the old city. All around, 1960s and 1970s Stalinist blocks and more recent buildings are fronted by the usual mish-mash of poor pavements and open manholes.
Wandering the streets is a good way to feel the real Sanya, and there are stalls piled with fresh vegetables on every corner and under every tree. As in much of southern China, life is lived out in the open. Shengli Lu is lined with shops specialising in selling marine equipment: buoys, ropes, life-jackets, outboard motors, floats, paints. The never-say-die attitude holds strong here: shopkeepers persisted in trying to sell me the most peculiar equipment. One was convinced I needed 50 litres of varnish; just what every tourist needs. Of course, the price came tumbling down. I felt bad leaving my bulk load of varnish for another lucky customer.
Along the side streets, tables and chairs spread across the concrete, under the trees, and groups of idle men mulled the important things in life over tea and fruit. At one restaurant, a small child manned the huge pans of food simmering over a gas cooker. Nearby, a woman was surrounded by children trying to cadge a pancake.

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sunshine, beaches.. and fresh air. .. just relax.