Lingshui's Floating Village

In a sheltered bay in Lingshui county, on Hainan’s southeast coast, there’s a village with no ground.

Houses sit on floating platforms — timber decks on drums and floats — linked by narrow plank walkways and moored in clusters. Around and beneath them are the fish pens: netted enclosures holding grouper, sea bass, cobia and shellfish, which is what the village is for.

How it works

The platforms are an aquaculture technology first and a housing solution second. Penning fish in a calm bay is more productive than chasing them at sea, and living directly above the pens means feeding, sorting and guarding them is continuous rather than a commute.

So the household is built onto the farm. A family’s platform has living quarters, a kitchen, storage, sometimes a generator, a tender boat tied alongside, and the pens integrated into the structure. Additions are made by lashing on more deck.

Practical consequences follow. Fresh water comes across by boat. Waste is a genuine issue and the reason authorities have periodically consolidated and regulated these communities. Typhoons are the existential threat, and when one is forecast the platforms are towed deeper into shelter and the families go ashore.

What visiting is like

Two things stand out.

The scale of the fish operation. Lift a feed hatch and there are hundreds of grouper below you. Feeding time turns the water solid.

How normal it all is. Laundry, a television, a dog with strong opinions about the walkways, someone’s grandmother shelling something in a plastic chair, a child doing homework — all of it two feet above the sea.

Meals are the obvious reason to come. Several platforms operate as restaurants: pick from the pen, and it’s on the table twenty minutes later. It’s as fresh as seafood gets anywhere and priced far below the Sanya resorts an hour west.

Practical notes

Getting out there: local boats run from the shore, and any restaurant platform will arrange the transfer. Negotiate the round trip up front.

Safety: the walkways are narrow, wet and unfenced. Watch children carefully, and don’t attempt them with a camera in each hand.

When: November to April. Avoid the typhoon window from roughly August to October — the platforms are moved and the crossings stop.

Etiquette: these are homes. Ask before photographing anybody or stepping onto a platform, don’t peer into living quarters, and pay for your meal without haggling.

Where else: the coast around Lingshui has good beaches and much less development than Sanya — and the interior of the county climbs into Li village country within half an hour. For the island by road, see Hainan by motorbike.