A new international standard pier will be built at Ban
Pae district in the eastern province of Rayong to facilitate tourists as
the existing pier is not adequate to accommodate the growing number of
tourists who want to visit Samet Island.
Pairat Arunwessaset, mayor of Pae District said,
“Samet Island is the most popular tourist destination of Ban Pae
District. A lot of tourists come to see the charming beauty of the white
sand and crystal-clear seawater of the island each year. However, the pier
at Ban Pae where passenger boats pick up tourists is below standard. The
pier is congested with ferries and fishing boats there is not enough
parking,” he said.
To facilitate the tourists and promote tourism, the
municipality plans to builda new pier to international standard behind the
breakwater. The local government has asked for permission to use the land
from the Harbor Department.
“After approval, Ban Pae municipality will seek a
budget of 50 million baht for the pier construction and will start working
on the project immediately,” Pairat said.
The new pier will serve ferries and tourist boats only
and will be equipped with international standard facilities. (TNA)
The AIRail product of the three partners Deutsche
Lufthansa AG, Deutsche Bahn AG and Fraport AG which is already successful
on the Stuttgart-Frankfurt route will also be offered on the new
Cologne-Frankfurt high-speed ICE route. As of 15 January 2003, this rail
connection is to be integrated into the worldwide Lufthansa route network.
Deutsche Lufthansa AG sees the opening of the new ICE
route from Frankfurt to Cologne as an important step in the modernization
of the transport infrastructure in the Federal Republic of Germany. “As
a result, new prospects open up for the existing cooperation with German
Railways. It is our aim to reduce flight connections between Cologne and
Frankfurt,” said Dr. Christoph Klingenberg, general representative of
group infrastructure at Deutsche Lufthansa AG.
The journey time will be 58 minutes between Cologne
central station and Frankfurt Airport station. The train service at
regular intervals as of 15 December 2002 will surpass the parallel program
of flights - six flights daily in each direction. For every international
flight from Frankfurt, there will be an ideal ICE feeder from Cologne. The
transfer time for connections from Cologne via Frankfurt to the world will
be perceptibly reduced.
For thousands of years the world beneath the oceans’
waves has cast a special spell on mankind. Ancient legend tells of
Alexander the Great descending into the sea in a glass cage and meeting a
sea monster so large that it took three days to swim past him.
Immune
to its venom, the colorful clown fish finds shelter in the deadly stinging
tentacles of the sea anemone. The clown fish keeps the host’s habitat
clean and leaves scraps of food for the anemone.
The Red Sea has long served man with its bounty and is
filled with strange and colorful marine life. The tiny plaid-clad hawk
fish continues to draw marine scientists to its reefs. Historians study
these reefs and their role in the development of early civilizations.
Geologists know it as an area of mysterious abyssal hot spots where
sediments may hold millions of dollars worth of precious metals.
But the Red Sea’s greatest treasures are those that
live out their lives much nearer to the surface of the crystalline water.
Undulating through a velvet sea, a nudibranch breathes
with its exposed feathery gills. The Red Sea species’ graceful movements
inspired the nickname, Badia, after a famed Egyptian belly dancer. The
nudibranch, or sea slug, produces thousands of eggs spread across the
coral reef like a delicate chiffon scarf.
The deadly shelter of the stinging tentacles of sea
anemones, which are lethal to smaller creatures, provides safe lodging for
spotted damselfish and boldly striped clown fish. Somehow these fish
either mask their identity as prey or stop their hosts from stinging.
Scientists think they provide a service to the sea anemones by keeping the
habitat clean and they may also fetch crustaceans and other morsels for
the anemone, which snatch scraps from the killing.
This
tough skinned triggerfish tipped over the prickly sea urchin with a jet
stream of water and is feeding on the urchin’s unprotected underside.
Humpbacked anglerfish wait for dinner amid the clumps
of pink tube sponges that cover the floor of the Red Sea. The humpbacked
angler seems a tasty snack to the unwary. But when its prey draws closer,
the angler, like a vacuum cleaner, sucks its victim into its mouth.
A common shark to the Red Sea resembles the aggressive
Indo-Pacific gray reef shark, but it behaves quite differently. An
encounter with a scuba diver will send this timid shark fleeing.
The most venomous of all the Red Sea’s creatures is
the stonefish. Harboring death for its victims in each of its 13 dorsal
spines, a stonefish takes its time and lies quietly on the ocean floor.
Divers and swimmers should wear protective footwear. The stonefish is a
lone fish. It goes unnoticed until a tiny victim strays too close. Then
with a lightening fast snap of its jaws, the stonefish grabs its dinner.
The wolf pack of the reefs is long nose barracuda.
Smaller than their cousins in other seas of the world, they are usually
about three feet long. Both species can be ferocious hunters and sometimes
as vicious as sharks. But in clear water such as the Red Sea they shun
creatures larger than themselves.
The triggerfish is a marvel. A banquet for this brave
fish is the prickly sea urchin. Very cleverly, this deft hunter huffs and
puffs and blows the urchin over with a well-aimed jet of water. Now the
urchin’s unprotected underside is exposed. The tough-skinned triggerfish
has little trouble finishing off its meal.
In reality there are no great monsters that prowl beneath the waves.
But the Red Sea harbors colorful and curious creatures that shelter in one
of the earth’s greatest concentrations of marine life.
