Wildlife enthusiasts, meanwhile, should charter a boat trip from Al Mina out to the fascinating, Unesco-rated Palm Islands Reserve, the domain of loggerhead turtles, monk seals and hundreds of species of migratory birds.

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The masts are eyesores: the tallest structures on most islands, they jut up through the coconut and palm trees.

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The Solomon Islands once exported gold, palm oil, timber and canned tuna.

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It also manages companies for example, Zambia's Chilanga Cement, in which it also has a majority stake, and palm-oil ventures in the Solomon Islands, Papua New Guinea and Thailand.

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The plans are a twist on a more ambitious previous proposal to significantly overhaul the ship and convert it into a luxury hotel docked alongside one of the sheikdom's manmade palm-shaped islands.

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Islands in the shapes of Palm Trees?

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Nor are all of them victims of financial collapse: the local economies in some outer islands, rich with exportable resources, such as palm oil, have continued to grow throughout the crisis.

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Of course, if you can manage to become crew on a yacht, all the remotest anchorages and untouched motus (low, palm covered islands) of French Polynesia come into reach.

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