On any Sunday
On any Sunday in Hong Kong you will find crowds flocking to the outer islands.
Actually, on any Sunday in Hong Kong you will find crowds flocking everywhere. That is because there are around 7 million people living in Hong Kong, most of them work six days a week, and on Sundays they need to get out. There is an exodus from the city to the countryside.
Often the WINGS crew is part of it.
We like to go sailing and in the Hong Kong area there is always an island to visit. If there is a bit of wind blowing we'll set sail and see which island the wind points us toward. For me, the best part is when the sails first fill and we sheet everything home and the boat heels to the power of the wind. But after I get my sailing fix, then we start to think about where to go. Recently we've been to Lamma, Peng Chau, and the Sokos.
Lamma was delightful, but really crowded. On any nice sunny Sunday it is like a country fair on Lamma Island: brimming with visitors, all the tourist shops are jammed, and the beaches and sidewalks are packed. Still, we took several friends and had a great time. We had a nice lunch at a good restaurant, did some shopping, and took a walk, and I shot some photos.
We wrote about Peng Chau not long ago.
Peng Chau is the closest island to our home base at Discovery Bay, but it remains a favorite.
And most recently we sailed to the Soko's.
We had a great sail to the Soko's, setting out in a nice ten knot breeze, south past the coast of Lantau, and past some of the outer islands, almost out of Hong Kong waters. The wind freshened as we skirted along the edge of the South China Sea, and on the approach to the Soko's we eased the sheets and romped along in a nice breeze and a boisterous ocean swell. We found our way into the channel between North and South Soko, poked our bow up into the wind, and dropped our hook in a pretty bay with a nice beach.
It is wonderful to have Wings rolling gently at anchor surrounded by beautiful sights such as these.
There are still beautiful sights in Hong Kong, but you must be selective where you look.
The problem with Hong Kong's natural beauty is that it is disappearing fast. You look one way and you see natural beauty, turn you head slightly, you see a construction project. For over a hundred years the engineers of Hong Kong have been busy busy busy. They have filled in much of Hong Kong's once stunning Victoria Harbor to make more room for office towers and cars. They filled in Penny Bay to make room for Disneyland, and they put up a huge power station on Lamma Island, once the haven for artists and hippies. The engineers have filled and dug and put up and torn down and made their mark on just about every one of Hong Kong's Islands and on many of the hills of the New Territories.
Now they have a new plan for the Sokos. They wish to build a terminal for natural gas tankers. Where would you want to build a gas tanker terminal except one of the last basically undeveloped islands in Hong Kong?
That's the bad news. The good news is that a local environmental group, The Living Islands Movement, is opposed to this gas tanker terminal and may be gearing up for another fight, fresh off their spectacular victory stopping the super prison on the Hei Ling Chau. They have a number of initiatives underway but if they can focus on this one, maybe the Sokos have a chance.
So we'll root for them, maybe even help out a bit, but we won't count our chickens. The engineers lost the last fight, but their record is still 100 to 1. I think we'd better enjoy the Sokos while we have a chance.
Fred & Judy, SV Wings, Hong Kong