Hainan Island Self-Driving Tour (6) - China's First Island-Type 5A Scenic Spot: Boundary Island

Hand in Hand Journey Season 11 - Hainan Island Self-Driving Tour (6) China's First Island-Type 5A Scenic Spot: Boundary Island 1/16 (Saturday): Wanning - Lingshui Cloudy weather, temperature 16-23°C. Started the morning with a stroll around the hotel, sharing a bird's-eye view of the DoubleTree by Hilton Hotel by Xinhu Lake (Photo 1). In the morning, we headed to Shimei Bay (Photo 2), one of Hainan's top ten bays located nearby. Shimei Bay is situated in the southeastern part of Wanning City, consisting of two crescent-shaped bays. Its six-kilometer-long silver sandy beach is embraced by gently sloping hills covered in lush vegetation, praised by World Tourism Organization experts as the most beautiful undeveloped bay in Hainan. The beach is as white as jade, with water depth not exceeding 2 meters within nearly 100 meters, hence its name "Sand Bay." The bay boasts rich natural resources, integrating azure seas, green mountains, white sand, peculiar rocks, islands, coconut groves, and streams into one picturesque landscape. Shimei Bay has been designated as a national nature reserve. Yesterday's application for aerial photography here wasn't approved due to general aviation routes. Today, we indeed saw a small twin-rotor helicopter on the beach, specifically for tourism purposes (Photo 3). We took a flight experience, circling around Shimei Bay and Riyue Bay at about 200 meters altitude. Due to helicopter vibrations, dirty windows, and reflections, the videos and photos taken weren't ideal, including Riyue Bay's artificial island (Photo 4) and Shimei Bay's China Resources Yacht Harbor (Photo 5). At noon, we proceeded to Boundary Island in Lingshui County (Photo 6). The bay corresponding to Boundary Island is Xiangshui Bay, ranked seventh among Hainan's top ten beaches, adjacent to Wanning's Shimei Bay. Boundary Island is China's first island-type 5A-level tourist attraction, a three-dimensional tourism zone integrating underwater, surface, and aerial activities, and Hainan's earliest developed uninhabited island tourism area. With excellent marine environmental resources, Boundary Island offers unique marine entertainment activities like coral reef diving, artificial reef diving, shipwreck exploration diving, dolphin diving, single-person submarines, jet skiing, and parasailing, all highly popular among tourists. The line connecting Boundary Island and Niuling Mountain on land is called the Boundary Ridge, serving not only as the boundary between Wanning and Lingshui but also as a climatic divide between northern and southern Hainan, as well as a cultural boundary between Han and Li-Miao ethnic groups. This is mainly because it's an important watershed on Hainan Island, where locals have long noticed distinct differences between the north and south of this ridge. The island's unique geographical environment results in crystal-clear blue waters, where visitors can see rich varieties of corals and marine fish. We chose the semi-submersible option and had the sightseeing boat to ourselves (Photo 7). After nearly 2 hours on the island, we headed directly to our hotel. We left some time to enjoy another coastal garden resort hotel (Photo 8) and the nearby properties and yacht marina in Fuli Bay (Photo 9) at sunset. Today's driving distance was only 45 kilometers, very relaxed. Tomorrow won't be far either—after visiting one more scenic spot in the morning, we'll enter the Sanya area.