A Travel Plan to XiSha Islands

转贴自己在2004年4月份做的西沙旅行计划，E文的，或者是Chinglish的。。

The XiSha Islands is a big group of coral reef, like the great barrier reef, Australia. It locates in the South China Sea which has lots of oil and gas. It belong to China.

Last week, I received the job offer of SINA. There are several weeks to start my new job. I decided to have a travel in XiSha, to celebrate the end of the boring life. Unfortunately, After I finished my travel plan, SINA called me, asked me to start my work at the next week immediately.

OK, I have to give up this travel. So Let me share the plan here to all of my friends.

Brief of XiSha Islands

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XiSha is a very sensitive place. Because some neighbouring countries, such as Vietnam, declaim the islands belong to them. Accroding to the UN Sea Pact, the owner of the XiSha Islands, will own the resource in South China Sea. Historically, some evidences show that XiSha became a part of China in Ming dynasty. It’s funny that Vietnam belonged to China in that times also. The biggest island is YongXing Island, It named by the battleship YongXing, which reoccupied the Islands from japs in WWII. In some English documents, it is called as Woody Island.

Nowadays, China has built military base and airport in YongXing Island. But the public travel has not been development. Although hicking is not forbidden, It’s really hard to arrive.

There is ONLY one supply ship between YongXing and WenChang every 20 days. (WenChang is the nearest port in HaiNan Island.) If it’s windy or rainy, the ship will be cancelled.

There are few airliners fly to YongXing Airport(Z24D, Woody Island). But in bad weather they will be cancelled, too. Because the airport only serve in VFR (Visual Flight Rules)*. That means if the pilot can not see the runway, the plane have to return.

For some uncontrollable reasons, the explore always can be cancelled by Navy.

Tips: If you want to travel there, you could join some science explore teams.

The Keyman of my plan

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Few science teams explore XiSha every year. But there is a guy named Xuejian Huang (黄学坚), he is working in the HaiNan Bureau of Travel. He organize explore teams frequently, and they could receive public applition. If you want to go XiSha, join his team is a better and simply choice. You need to prepay ¥600. If the team was cancelled, he will return it.

The contact of Keyman Huang:

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#302, HaiNan Bureau of Travel

No.6, HaiFu Road, HaiKou.

海口市海府路6号省旅游局大楼3楼302室

email:hxj@tourhn.com, hxj@hainan.net

tel:13907682658, 65331799

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Huang has many infomation about XiSha travel. His website offer the schedule of the future explore.

When I save enough time, I will start this trip, have a look of the amazing islands.

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* Extra Infomation of YongXing Island Airport:

– Accroding to Micro$oft Flight Simulator 2004

Woody Island (Z24D)

Latitude: N16*50.01′

Longitude: E112*20.70′

Elevation: 45 FT

Runway: 5/23

Length: 7874 FT

Surface: Concrete

ILS: N/A