Heart Reef Resort: a place that every Second Life resident should visit

Last Updated on Tuesday, 14 July 2009 01:41 Written by Lam Erin Tuesday, 31 March 2009 22:06

To some residents Second Life is about partying. The great variety of clubbing opportunities and the wide range of music options offered to partygoers guarantee exciting moments in the clubs of SL. To other residents SL is an opportunity to be creative by engaging in activities such as building and scripting to create objects and buildings. Other residents are looking for business opportunities or focus on social aspects of the game. To me SL is a place where I can relax and socialise. I achieve my goal by engaging in activities that fuel exciting and positive feelings, such as visiting exciting SL places and socialising with like-minded people.

In this article I will present a SL resort which combines the creative skills of its owner and SL’s technical capabilities to create a really beautiful and relaxing site. The resort offers excellent opportunities to SL residents to escape for a while from their SL and RL routines. An additional advantage is that the site is not detached from the real world but it constitutes a virtual depiction of real places. Its name is Heart Reef Resort.

The resort was hiding a number of surprises for me in my first visit. The first surprise was that the theme of the site was Greek islands.  Greece is my birthplace and I always have a keen interest on SL places and activities dedicated to Greece, so I was surprised that I had no prior knowledge of the existence of Heart Reef Resort. I decided to explore it. The resort contains virtual depictions of three Greek islands: Mykonos, Santorini and Chios. I have visited all three in real life and drawing some comparisons with real world was unavoidable. I have to admit that the owner of the resort has succeeded in bringing into SL some very beautiful parts of these islands: the old but well- preserved and decorated houses in the villages, the narrow alleys, the amazing view of the Aegean sea are all excellectly depicted in the site. The resort is very colourful and amazingly relaxing.

At some point and as I was walking through the alleys exploring the sim I felt for a moment that I was not in SL but in the real Santorini and Mykonos! Being nostalgic of real life in this way was not something I had expected to see in SL. 

 However, it happened and I am grateful to the owner of Heart Reef Resort for this. The photos below which contain images from the SL resort and the real world illustrate the reasons of my nostalgia. 

 The nostalgic feeling was the second surprise for me but it seems that the end of surprises had yet to come. Impressed by the quality of the work done in the resort I contacted the owner for more information. I was certain that he was either Greek or at the very least that he had visited these islands. To my surprise I was completely wrong. It turned out that the owner was Japanese who had never been to Greece!

Kenny Humby, the owner of Heart Reef Resort, explained to me in a friendly conversation that he loves Greek culture and buildings, especially the Aegean and this was the reason he built the resort.  He also provided me with some useful information about the entire project. Heart Reef Resort was built by its owner alone. It seems that Kenny was patient enough to spend two years and serious efforts on its construction. He also used more than 10,000 real photos as guidance for designing and building. Really impressive information taking also into account that he was an amateur builder with little knowledge of building.  Apparently the resort is one of the many success stories in SL of people who used the platform to learn and then create beautiful projects.

 The resort though is hiding even more surprises. It offers six beautiful auto tours of the site each of them serving a different purpose. There is a holding-hands tour, a love tour, a balloon tour, which Kenny claims is the longest in SL, a zero gravity tour, a scuba tour and mermaid tour. All auto-tours last for several minutes and all you have to do is wear a free DVD hud provided to you in the sim. You can then move your avatar to the starting point and then all you have to do is sit back in your chair and relax watching the tour on your screen. The hud will be moving your avatar and guide it during the tour.

I have taken almost all these auto-tours and the scuba diving was the one that I enjoyed most. The starting point was at Luna beach where in addition to the DVD hud I was provided with diving equipment and gear. After wearing the equipment I took position at the starting point and the tour started. The avatar submerged and after using a narrow pass to pass through some concrete rocks beneath the sea surface it entered in to a beautiful area which is filled with tropical fish, corals, octopuses and even sharks! There is also the wreck of an old ship.

  The avatar took an extensive tour of the area and then emerged back to the starting point.  The experience was very relaxing and I used the opportunity to take some nice photos. The balloon tool is very enjoyable too and offers a panoramic and colourful view of the whole area. Actually all auto-tours are beautiful and I would strongly recommend that visitors take all of them. I think the pictures I have included in the article are telling.

But this is still not the end of surprises. The resort offers parachute glide, romantic dance in moonlight and a number of other options which I did not have the opportunity to explore during my visits so far. However it is certain that I will explore them in the future since I am convinced that they will be exciting and enjoyable.

Heart Reef Resort is without any doubt a wonderful place and a great vacation experience in SL. I think Kenny’s strong commitment to his project and long-term efforts paid off and offered to SL residents an excellent opportunity to escape and relax. As for me, my visit to the resort was one more opportunity to enjoy the creative side of SL.  

Lam Erin