Hong Kong Update & Macau Race
We've been here for more than a year now, and we are settled in at the nice Discovery Bay Marina Club on Lantau Island. Judy is working full time and I am being a house husband, shopping, cooking, cleaning and doing boat projects. I'm still looking for another job here after my last one ended in February. If I land one, we'll stay on in Hong Kong for a year or two more, otherwise we'll probably move on after Typhoon Season in October or November, heading back to the Philippines before sailing on west to SE Asia.
We'd love to hear from you, so please write and let us know what is going on in your world.
Waking up to the snap and crack of flags and banners on race morning gives one high hopes for a great day of sailing. Sunday morning in Macau was like that and we were excited and optimistic as we cast off our shore lines and headed out to the race course for the return race from Macau to Hong Kong.
We'd arrived in Macau on Friday afternoon after racing down from Hong Kong with the Cruise Owner's Association. The conditions for that race were good also: we had 16 to 20 knots of wind blowing right towards Macau. Judy won the start and we were first up the short leg to the windward mark. Unfortunately we forgot our sailing instructions about which way to round the mark and we had to wait for the next boat for someone to follow. After that fiasco, we got the kite up and jibed our way through the islands for almost all of the 31 mile distance to Macau's buoy #1. We were sailing double handed against fully crewed yachts and it was hard work, but we did fine, got third place, and were tired but happy when we tied up the boat at Club de Nautico in Macau.
What sailors do when they arrive in a new port is go exploring, and that's what we did too. After folding the sails, clearing in with the immigration folks who were dockside, waiting for us, and having a few cold brews at the after-race party, we set off to explore the city. The first order of business was dinner and we joined some other sailors at a good restaurant on the old town for Portuguese food and plenty of fine wine. After that we went to the casino district where Judy won enough on the slot machines to make us feel double lucky: first, for our sailing performance in the race and then for her winnings.
Macau is an exotic mix of China with a Portuguese flavor, in some ways unchanged for 400 years. On Saturday we walked all over the older parts of Portuguese Macau sight seeing and wandering up and down the narrow streets and alleys among the many colonial buildings and small shops. Everywhere we were dodging the motor scooters which seem to be the favorite form of transportation. We hiked to the top of the hill to the old fort with its ramparts and cannons dating from 1700 and took photos of the city. Coming down from that fort we tried to imagine what it must have felt like 400 years ago for Dutch soldiers fighting their way up its slopes against the Portuguese in the tropical heat, facing those cannons. And we thought of those soldiers spilling their blood and dying far from home. We were glad we came as sailboat racers, not soldiers.
We finished our day at the awards party for the race with more food and wine and got a trophy for our finish the day before. We also got lots of positive feedback for how well we sailed shorthanded.
But Hot! It was bloody hot and it seemed like no amount of sunscreen was enough to cut the sun's blistering rays and no amount of water was enough to quench our thirst. By the time we reached our home port in Disco Bay we were all pretty red and parched. But that's sailing as good as it gets, and we're not complaining.
Fred & Judy, SV WINGS, Hong Kong
PS: We have started a web log at http://wingssail.blogspot.com/ with more of our cruising stories and lots more photos.
