Xiaoxinshan Island and Turtle Bay

It is only 10 days until school starts again and I’m taking a quick trip to the beach for the weekend. We traveled to huizhou which is in the province and just a few hours drive away to snorkel and visit a national sea turtle refuge. The food for lunch was great: tofu, green beans and eggplant, and lotus root. I have not had lotus root this way and it is more like the shoots.

We took a speedboat to Xiaoxinshan Island. The water was pretty murky as we had a typhoon a short time back but we could see sea urchins on the rocks. It was good to swim in salt water and I was not really expecting to see a large amount of marine life as I have in Thailand or the Great Barrier Reef.

We took the speedboat back and then a short ride to the turtle bay hotel. It is not where the beach is which is just fine. It is quiet and right next to where we are visiting the next day. We cleaned up and went to the village for seafood.

The next morning I went to the pool for a swim and caught the sunrise.

After breakfast we walked to the double moon Bay. We had taken the speedboat from the left side the day before to go snorkeling.

We then walked to the national sea turtle breeding ground facility which was near the hotel. Despite removing mangrove forests and disrupting the actual places sea turtles need, they do have a breeding program here.

They are able to leave the large tanks during breeding season to lay eggs on the attached beach.

It was a very relaxing weekend. Fire the test of the time I’m going to relax in my new apartment, do some work, and enjoy swimming in the pool. COVID cases are making travel unpredictable as it is the summer holiday. I will have a six week holiday in December and January and hopefully cases are much less by then.