History and sovereignty of the South China Sea

"In several exchanges with Hainan Islanders, we found them to be civilized and polite. In the absence of Qing officials, they were happy to share new stories with us, but whenever they appeared, they immediately became as unreasonable as those we met along the coast of China...... There are many wooden fishing boats on the island, made of a hard, heavy wood rather than the fir wood commonly used by Chinese boats, and they move very fast. Most vessels go out to sea for two months a year, sailing 700 to 800 nautical miles from home to collect sea cucumbers (bicho de mer) and collect dried turtles and shark fins, which abound between the sandbars and shoals of the southeastern Chinese Sea. The voyage began in March, reaching the sandbar in the northern part of the South China Sea, leaving behind a crew or two and a few tanks of fresh water to continue their journey, before reaching some large shoals near Borneo to continue fishing. In early June, they began to return, picking up the crew and their catch on the way. We met many of these fishing boats near the shallows of the China Sea.