This is a personal blog recording reflections on living life abroad, education, and family.
Saturday, March 13, 2021
Thank you, Asia "Boats abroad" (79 days left in HK)
March 13, 2021
Last night Brent and I were treated to a lovely evening on a 40' sailboat of friends of ours, the Orrin Blue. (Thanks, Catriona and Bob!) It turns out they hadn't sailed in Tai Tam Bay for 30 years, but they happened to be just off the pier which is literally a five-minute walk from where we live. A few weeks earlier Catriona had heard one of my bucket list wishes - to be on a boat at Tai Tam. The stars aligned! And so here I sit on the heels of the high of being delivered to their boat on a tiny dinghy, hanging out with good people on a lovely boat as the sun set over the mountains behind our home of another 79 days. What a lovely view of our school and apartment from the bay down there. We saw the local fishermen up close as after dark they cast their nets, pounded on a drum to scare fish, and pulled up the near-empty nets.
Catriona and Brenda
The view over the bow.
Night fishermen scaring the fish into the nets
All of this to say I am now reflecting on the many types of boats and boat rides we have encountered these past 11 years in Asia.
In Hong Kong you can't visit or live here without a trip on the Star Ferry which goes endlessly from Mainland Hong Kong at Kowloon Peninsula to Hong Kong Island and back again across Victoria Harbour. And it is cheap. About 33 cents for adults one way.
A ferry to Lamma Island (maybe)
On a Star Ferry with MaryEllen and friends
Also in Hong Kong there are junk boats you can hire for a day on the water with friends. According to the South China Morning Post, these wooden workhorse boats date back to the Han Dynasty and were commonly used for trade in China and other parts of Southeast Asia. As Brent isn't a huge fan of seasickness, our partying on junk boats has been limited to a few key birthday parties and such.
A very traditional junk (Aqua Luna) in Victoria Harbour
Lovely ladies (Teresa, Teresa, Lauren) enjoying the junk cruise.
Celebrating Dana's birthday on a junk boat.
I even jumped off to swim!
Another Hong Kong tradition is dragonboat racing. Generally teams train for months before competing in May and June. Brent even tried being on a team for a season and can tell you all about it. Of course dragonboat racing happens in the US too but I never heard of it until living in Hong Kong. Fortunately for us, Tai Tam village holds its own annual dragon boat races right below our window! We certainly missed them last year during Covid cancellations.
Dragonboat races near Lunar New Year in Tai Tam Bay
Statuary of a dragonboat in Aberdeen (the original Hong Kong)
The locals in Aberdeen and Sai Kung still use their sampan boats with the oar at the stern to ferry people out to islands. I have yet to get on one.
small craft and sampans at Sai Kung
And then there are the more unusual kinds of boats we have run across, such as the "this boat disguises as a gigantic rice bowl" boat in Vietnam. Brent and the kids navigated just fine, but I couldn't make the boat do what I wanted and ended up needing the very old owner of the boat (80-something) to come and rescue me!
To avoid boat taxation by the French during the Colonial Era the indigenous
Vietnamese devised basket boats that doubled as rice containers.
Brent in a basket boat in Vietnam
My earliest memory of any boat in Asia was of a catamaran on our trip to Boracay, Phillipines at Christmas in 2010. It was our first Christmas abroad and we decided on a week-long trip to beautiful Boracay (the place with the whitest, softest sand). It took a lot of courage to book a vacation that called for first a plane ride from Korea to Cebu, then a local plane (everyone and everything on the plane had to be weighed individually!), then a catamaran, then a van to arrive at our destination. Enjoy the video here which begins with the catamaran ride.
Highlight video from Boracay, Phillipines 2010
Catamarans arriving in Boracay
Photo Credit Susan Taylor
We have been on so many boats for various reasons these past eleven years, perhaps that is one of the reasons we now love water so much. We look forward to the sailing, boating, and pontoon boating that awaits us.
So cool!
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