At lonely island outpost in Yellow Sea, teams of experts monitor water, weather

Heading to an island for a Spring Festival getaway might be popular with Chinese holiday revelers, but not for Che Haojie, who is spending his third holiday in a row on a secluded island in the Yellow Sea, which separates China's northeast coast from the Korean Peninsula.

Qianliyan Island - meaning thousands of miles of rocks in Chinese - is a deserted outcrop with few plants and virtually no fresh water. At about 1 square kilometer and at an altitude of no more than 100 meters above sea level, the island has been dubbed the South Pole of the Yellow Sea.

"When I first stepped onto the island, everything appeared so novel and romantic to me. But after the honeymoon period passed and the initial excitement faded, the overwhelming monotonousness is just suffocating," said Che, 49, deputy director of the island's marine environmental monitoring station.