Truong Sa - Amazing nature

Truong Sa Lon Island seen from the sea - the place known as the "capital" of Truong Sa archipelago. Photo: Tien Hung

The majestic Truong Sa probably starts from... geology and topography; one of the most interesting terrains is probably Thuyen Chai Island. Seen from afar, the coral reef under the green sea water looks like a fishing boat, perhaps the fishermen used their traditional tool to call it Thuyen Chai Island. However, looking at satellite photos, the image of Thuyen Chai coral island looks very much like a bow that has been pulled out. Running in the East - Southwest direction, this coral reef is about 3 nautical miles wide and about 17 nautical miles long. When the tide recedes, the coral rocks rise up from 20 to 40cm high. In the middle of Thuyen Chai Island is a large "lake" with deep water, about twenty square kilometers wide. Every time the tide goes down, the lake bed reveals three sandbanks about half a meter high, but when the tide comes in, it is... flooded, up to 1m deep. Naval engineers blasted the coral reef, clearing a 300m long, 20m wide channel for boats from the ocean outside the coral reef to enter the lake to avoid storms.

Engineer divers of Brigade 131, who are working on solid structures in Truong Sa, have explored the seabed many times. Sometimes the deep sea fascinates them, as if they were lost in the palace of the sea king. The soft, colorful giant coral trees, the distance between the coral branches like caves, have become habitats for aquatic species. The soft, long-finned fish swim peacefully next to the sea turtle and the octopus sits with its antennae propped up, looking like a decrepit old woman... In the future, Truong Sa will become a tourist destination and the seabed will be a paradise for those who like to move, travel, explore and discover.

Vast coral reefs gradually appear after the tide recedes on Da Tay B Island. Photo: Tien Hung

When I arrived at Truong Sa Dong, in the afternoon, I sat resting on the shore of the concrete breakwater. I saw many ancient trees washed ashore by the waves. Some trees still had their roots intact, their branches were dense, their trunks were so big that a person could not hug them, some were nearly as tall as a person, and more than 10 meters long. No one knew where these trees came from. Maybe storms and floods in the Central region swept them along the Huong River, Han River, Ba River... out to sea? Or maybe their homeland was in a forest somewhere in the Philippines or Indonesia, or even from East Timor. There were also huge oil or gasoline drums, about 5 meters in diameter, washed ashore by the waves. I suspected they came from a shipwreck somewhere. The Truong Sa sea is truly mysterious, fascinating, and has relationships with the mainland that are bridges of nature that are difficult to explain.

Diurnal tides, with the water rising and falling once, make the landscape of Truong Sa always change, fresh and pristine. Even the presence of coral reefs, or submerged orphan rocks, sometimes submerged, sometimes floating, is extremely vivid. Circulating early and late according to the diurnal tide cycle, this month the coral reefs and orphan rocks appear in the early morning, next month at noon, the month after that at dusk, the month after that... waking up in the middle of the night and looking out the window, you see a vast, dry coral reef, and then in the morning the submerged island is again vast and there is only water.

Sunken island. Photo: Mai Thang

The first island to see the sunrise is Tien Nu Island. However, whether on a floating or submerged island or on a rig, sunrise and sunset are clearly visible. The sun in Truong Sa is bigger than the sun on the mainland, that is indisputable. During the trip, we saw the sun like a red silkworm basket slowly sinking or slowly rising above the sea surface very clearly many times, meaning we saw with our own eyes both its appearance and disappearance.

Perhaps the strangest thing in Truong Sa is... the waterspout. The sky is calm, the sea is calm, suddenly you see a white column of water standing up high, sometimes it bends or twists like a giant drill and slowly moves on the sea surface. Sometimes the waterspout goes straight in front of you, sometimes it goes straight, or goes diagonally and then disappears towards the horizon. If the waterspout goes towards the island, be careful to get into the bunker, otherwise it will suck all the pots, pans, vegetables, guns, chickens, ducks and even people up into the sky and throw them to a far away place. The island soldiers patrolling the island by boat were terrified when they saw the waterspout, they could only run at full speed to the boat bridge, anchor and run to the island to hide.

The brilliant sunset on Truong Sa island. Photo: Quang Dung

The most splendid thing in Truong Sa is... the rainbow. A rainbow is a physical phenomenon, sunlight is dispersed when refracted and reflected through countless raindrops. Red, pink, green, blue, indigo, violet... shines in a giant arc. Rainbows always appear after rain, and Truong Sa has unpredictable rain and sunshine many times, so it is normal for the island soldiers to admire the shimmering beauty of the rainbow several times a day. Sometimes there are two rainbows stacked on top of each other. During the trip, I and the mainlanders who went to the island saw a shimmering seven-color rainbow on the sea surface a few times; but the most magnificent was seeing the rainbow with my own eyes on the submerged island of Nui Le. The ship left the island for a while and it rained, the rain passed for a while and then stopped. Yet, a brilliant shimmering rainbow stretched across the sky from military base A to military base B. Two submerged island houses, very far apart, dark and faint, emerged on the horizon, suddenly becoming the foot of a seven-color rainbow.

Da Nam Island, a coral reef in the Song Tu cluster in Truong Sa. Photo: Quang Dung

The islands of Da Lon, Co Lin, Da Dong..., around the island - on the outer edge of the coral reef, there are countless precious fish: birds, mackerel, tuna, sea cucumbers... When the tide recedes, the coral belt is completely exposed, you can walk around the island. This submerged coral reef also has many precious fish: tuna, grouper, sea bream, lobster, sea turtles. In Tien Nu, there are giant sea clams. When I went to the island, I only saw a bare concrete "bunker island" rising firmly and a tall island house without any trees. While I was wishing to see a snail or a sea clam the size of a little finger, a navy soldier driving the boat said: "Wait for me a moment." After saying that, the soldier waded into the water, groped around for about five minutes and pulled up a sea shell as big as a hat, to the amazement of the people on the mainland. After groping for a while, the young soldier pulled up another one but had a piece broken off the size of half a hand. People passed around a clam shell dripping with saltwater and marveled at it. The inside of the clam shell was smooth and ivory white, while the outside was rough with many raised ridges. They were a rare aquatic species, in danger of extinction.

In the world, people have caught giant clams weighing nearly 300kg and taken five pearls as big as goose eggs. In Truong Sa, almost every island has giant clams, and Sinh Ton Island also has giant clams. The Vietnam Red Book records two specimens of giant clams, half a meter wide and nearly a meter long, caught on Sinh Ton Island. Soldiers wading in the coral reef were very afraid of stepping on the mouth of a giant clam or giant clam. Suddenly, it closed its mouth and swallowed the shoe or sandal they were wearing, crushing the flesh down to the bone. The only way to pull out the leg was to use a machete or crowbar.

Truong Sa also has a type of giant turtle. The turtle is actually a large sea turtle. (In the lake bed of Toc Tan sunken island, there are also 3 turtles..., but made of concrete. Each weighs... 3 tons, used to anchor ships). During the breeding season, the turtles crawl onto the sandbank of the island to lay eggs, then use their front legs to pile up the sand, cover the tracks and also create the temperature to incubate the eggs. On the day, on the month, the baby turtles break out of the eggshells. The soldiers on Truong Sa Dong island patrol early in the morning, sometimes catch them and throw them over. Only by catching the turtles in this way, they cannot run away, just dangling their four legs in the air. Otherwise, they gather around to pull, hold or even sit on the turtles' trunks, but they still drag their whole bodies down to the sea.

The most vibrant thing in Truong Sa is the birds. Since the beginning of time, every time the migratory birds come, they flock to the equatorial tropics to avoid the cold. The islands of Truong Sa are like a rest stop both when they fly out and back. Dense. Dense. Countless birds with black, gray feathers, it feels like they block out the sun. Another flock of birds, another... and they block out the sun, darkening the entire island. They are not afraid of people, the island soldiers seem to be used to the noise and chaos of the birds, and have to endure the suffering of the quarreling and chirping. Of course, we have to prepare when the migratory birds have all flown away to clean up the dead birds, and disinfect the white bird droppings on the roofs, bridges, island bases, fortifications, and water tanks.

The seagulls normally fly around in the sky and sometimes swoop down to catch fish, looking very beautiful and romantic. The seagulls have grey back feathers, grey beaks and legs, but white belly feathers, some have pure white feathers, red feet and beaks. They are called... storm birds, very friendly with the sailors and island guards. When storms come, they also know how to fly to the island to avoid the wind and rain. However, it is very annoying that they sneak into meeting rooms, bedrooms, hide in food cupboards, hide under blankets, perch on beds, even sneak into the ship's steering room. However, no one has the heart to chase them away and pluck their feathers to eat. At night, when the island soldiers are dozing off, they also nod off, and then in the morning they fly around, white and fluttering under the sun. How lively!

Truong Sa archipelago is the sacred land of the Fatherland, an indispensable part of Vietnam. Photo: Tien Hung

On every floating island, there are concrete barriers to break the waves, and concrete markers. The island soldiers often tie targets to them... to practice shooting. Suddenly, one morning, marching to the sandbank to practice, oh my god, on all those barriers and markers, there are seabirds that look like herons on the mainland... perched. The target is no longer the target, but strange birds. Of course, the "fly head on the butt with a black dot" is the bird's breast so that the bullet coming out of the barrel penetrates the head so that the flesh is not destroyed. But, it is just for practice aiming, the island soldiers do not have enough bullets to shoot the birds that come to be their friends. I kept imagining, thinking far and near: the soldiers living alone on submerged islands, floating islands, and oil rigs, with their legs tied up, looking back and forth, they are all men and boys; if there were no lively sea creatures creating a strange and romantic nature, what would their lives be like?