Flowers in the rain

Over the hump

A humpbacked whale has wandered into the vicinity of Hong Kong island (no whale in its right mind would choose to live here: for one thing there's practically nothing left to eat in Hong Kong waters) and is currently hanging out at Cape D'Aguilar. This morning, I was steering a crew that had fallen behind the other OC6 we were racing. As we came back around Beaufort Island and into Stanley Bay, in completely calm conditions, we saw the whale was right in front of us. Suddenly winning didn't seem so important anymore: we watched the whale surface lazily, rolling in the water, and then jump fully into the air no more than 50 metres away as we gasped like overawed children at a fireworks display.

The government isn't stopping anyone from coming in to the area, even though any noise louder than 160 decibels may damage the whale's hearing and cause further disorientation. I felt conscious enough of this in our little boat but all around us speedboats and police launches sent rumbles through the water that we could feel. The channel behind Beaufort Island and Po Toi is one of the busiest in the world; at night I can hear the mournful sounds of ships' horns, the noise and traffic is constant, and it's got to be a matter of concern whether the whale can actually get out of there to continue its migratory journey.

Our paddle home was considerably more calm; I got everyone to paddle with their eyes closed for four sets, and talked about being in harmony with the boat and each other as we paddle. The timing issues we'd been having seemed to iron themselves out and we ended up racing home, everyone paddling hard. It sounds cheesy but I think we all felt we'd experienced something special together and it seemed to make a difference.

Photo © REUTERS/Hong Kong Agriculture, Fisheries and Conservation Department

I can see clearly now

The view from my office window of Victoria Harbour, Hong Kong, July 3, 2008. On my way in to work on the 260 bus, I saw islands in the distance I didn't know were there. The reason for this unusual clarity and excellent visibility? Depending who you ask, the factories in Guangzhou have been closed by flooding, so they aren't spewing out toxicity; and/or storms have cleared away the smog. Paddling on the water in the last few weeks, though, has been like navigating through a vast mobile junkheap of flip-flops, wrappers, branches, shoes, plastic bags, dead dogs (really) and empty bottles. So you can have either clear skies or clean water; never both.

Around the world in a day

Yesterday I circumnavigated Hong Kong Island by sea: the club were paddling in the Round the Island Race in an all-male crew and I was in the support boat, a junk belonging to The Economist. I was meant to be paddling, but there weren’t enough women to enter a separate crew; and I admit I was relieved because the race involves sea changes where you have to wait in the water for the boat to come by and then haul yourself over the gunwale while the person in the seat you’re headed for racks their paddle and bails out the other side. This is manageable in flat water, but in swells, in a race situation, and at speed, it is a thoroughly nerve-wracking prospect.

The race is organized by the Royal Hong Kong Yacht Club, takes place once a year and is for anything that is not engine-powered - usually yachts, although there are windsurfers too. It’s connected to the Harbour Day celebrations which are intended to promote the idea that, despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary, the harbour is for everyone - tralala, and the day that it’s not too toxic to swim in and they stop reclaiming it to build shopping centres and prestige apartments maybe I’ll believe that.

This year, for the first time, outrigger canoes were permitted to take part. Our team took nearly 5 hours, and the yachts, which started later in stages according to class, came racing round Cape D’Aguilar at the south-east tip of the island and towards us in the blink of an eye. I looked back and there was the fleet (about 180 sailing boats of all sizes) bearing down on us in the late-morning sunshine: some with white sails and some with grey. It was an incredible sight. Then the wind dropped and all the yachts were becalmed not far from Aberdeen Harbour while our team moved past them again - a very strange sight, as their sails fell, and the current against them slowed their speed, and they looked across at the tiny six-man canoe slipping from their clutches.

The top outrigger team came from Hawaii and they completed the clockwise circuit of the island in just under four hours, beating all but a few of the yachts. The last stretch, into Victoria Harbour, was spectacular, with sails everywhere and the usual intense atmosphere of a somewhat polluted Sunday in the harbour: the Star Ferry crossing back and forth in wide loops to avoid the harbour reclamation project which inexorably impinges into the waterway; the Macau, Discovery Bay and Lamma ferries powering past us churning steaming water in their wake; tug boats pulling unimaginably heavy loads of what looked like sand and rocks; container ships towering with rusty ice cream blocks; the oily sheen of the water; the tall buildings rising into the smog; and what sounded like karaoke booming out from the Exhibition and Conference Centre.

October revolution

It's Golden Week in mainland China at the moment, and everyone downs tools and, typically, travels thousands of miles to their home towns. All the factories in the Pearl River Delta are shut and as a result the skies in Hong Kong were a Turner painting today. Looking out of my office window, the sun was shining and all the buildings, even across the harbour, were sharply defined and perfectly visible. It was like seeing them for the first time.

Of course, HongKongers' proclivity for blaming the mainland for all our ills is somewhat hypocritical, given that most of the factories belching out the pollution which drifts down the Pearl River Delta and attaches itself to Hong Kong are owned by Hong Kong residents looking to source their production somewhere cheaper and less well-regulated than Hong Kong.

When I go out paddling on the water at night I try not to think about the correlation between the clearly visible swathes of pollution obscuring the hillsides of South Island and the air I am breathing.