Claire and I don’t give our guests an easy intro to their
times in HK. We had Jen and Ed with a cocktail in their hands on a party junk within
four hours of landing. Sandie was quaffing an expatty gin in a rain storm under
a sagging Central bar’s awning before her feet had touched the floor.
Jo and Adam were no exception. They found themselves being
dragged behind a motor boat at speed in the South China Sea less than 24 hours
after their tyres hit the tarmac.
We had heard some time ago that wake boarding – imagine waterskiing,
but with a snowboard – was available on the south side of the island. It’s not
at all difficult to book into, and is doled out (for what ultimately looks and
sounds at least a tad technical and dangerous) with no checks for experience.
The four of us, along with our friend Rachel, simply grabbed a taxi to the tiny
village of Tai Tam, met our boatman Brian, jumped on his little boat, strapped
the boards with bungee ropes to the back, and chugged into the bay.
As most of you will know, I am Mr Risk Averse. HK has beaten
quite a bit of that out of me – who would have predicted I would be happy to
run through bamboo groves, along ridges with sheer drops or through streams at
night before I came out here? But I drew the line at trying to ride a wave on a
snowboard-type device in the middle of the sea behind a boat. I settled for
marvelling at the backdrop (so picturesque and repetitive as we circled the
bay, that it reminded me of the repeating 2D cityscapes that you used to get as
background in early 90s platform computer games…anyone remember what I mean?!).
My companions were much more intrepid.
Rachel, pictured in the top photo, only ever fell when her
arms got too tired or when trying to perform jumps and tricks. She stayed up so
long we almost ended up on the several miles distant Stanley beach several
times.
Adam struggled a little to get into a standing position –
apparently there is a knack that, when you’ve done it once, is easy to
replicate – so sadly we saw quite a bit of the below off the back of the boat
as he battled the waves.
Jo, with a distant memory of waterskiing back in the day,
took to this like a duck to water, and by her last run she was almost as hard
to shake off as Rachel. And this is how thrilled she was about it.
Claire – with her excellent balance and the dancers’
strength in her legs – really got the hang of it in the end. Though not without
some spectacular falls – this photo is the frame before we catapaulted face
first into the sea. She can’t wait to try it again…so a future standard
Saturday plan might be a taxi to Tai Tam, Claire goes out in a boat, and I run
around the beautiful hills ad reservoir for 2 hours, and lunch in Stanley.
Perfect.
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