Pollution in our waters

3 replies
7 September 2004 - 10:40pm
kayakandhike
Joined: 18 Aug 2004
User offline. Last seen 4 years 10 weeks ago.

What a fantastic weekend ! The visability was so good the Chinese islands to the East near Daya Bay seamed like a stones throw away. 45km + It is a shame we cannot say the same about the sea condition. I was guiding a group of tourist. We kayaked and explored the islands and waters south of High island reservoir. They thought the day was just great but I was umbarrassed due to the floating debris which was noticable every 5 meters. At one point my support boat was brought to a stand still by yet another rice bag. Floating oil drums, fridges, Watsons, Park'n' shop and wellcome bags everywhere ! We were very fortunate to kayak in th clearest water in the area, friend who hiked to Tai Long Wan were very disappointed as the Red tide was so bad they could not go for a swim to cool off. I don't think the government can blame China anymore, alot of this rubbish is coming from the extreme amout of HK local tour boats ! I spend 3 to 4 days a week out on the water and the situation is getting serious. Most people enjoy the water one a week or even once a month so they do not see the impact. How can we solve this problem and make our public aware? Paul

Top
8 September 2004 - 2:17am
#1
DocMartin
Joined: 13 Jun 2005
User offline. Last seen 23 weeks 4 days ago.
Re:Pollution in our waters

Hi kayakandhike, welcome to the forums. Yes, some top weather over the weekend.

But even on Cheung Chau (where red tide not noted in media reports), I swam on Friday and came out with fair amount of algae on me - didn't notice it was red, but maybe related. There weren't plastic bags etc - but it just needs an easterly wind, and sure enough these and other floating lap sap blow inshore. :x

Top
7 July 2008 - 1:06am
#2
Martin Williams
Martin Williams's picture
Joined: 1 Jun 2008
User offline. Last seen 5 hours 22 min ago.
Red tide returns near Lantau n Cheung Chau

red tide froth lantau

Well, this thread has been very quiet for a long time! But that doesn't mean that Hong Kong's water pollution woes have miraculously gone away in past four years or so.

Here's a shot from a couple of days ago; kind of scene that's too typical in summers lately (common last year) - ruddy brown water, froth in wakes of passing ferries; just south of Lantau, north of Cheung Chau. I believe as red tide occurring.

Webmaster of HK Outdoors - and DocMartin

Top
1 August 2008 - 9:21pm
#3
philk
Joined: 31 Jul 2008
User offline. Last seen 10 weeks 3 days ago.
Water pollution

I recently spent a day diving at Long Ke Tsai - the seabed is absolutely littered with plastic bags - I think the place has more bags than my local Park N Shop. I spent the best part of four dives shoving as much stuff as I could into my BC pockets and I hardly made a dent on the amount of rubbish down there.

It is a real shame that a place which is so beautiful above water is so messy underneath. I've dived all over HK and this is the worst I have seen - I have no idea if this is just detritus blown into the bay before sinking (or hitting the beach which was pretty messy too) or whether, as I suspect, it is down to the multitude of pleasure boats and junks that visit the place on any given weekend. Either way, not nice and a real shame.

Top

Post new comment

CAPTCHA
This question is for testing whether you are a human visitor and to prevent automated spam submissions.
7 + 0 =
Solve this simple math problem and enter the result. E.g. for 1+3, enter 4.

Hong Kong Outdoors is hosted by the highly reliable pair.com, which I found after fair amount of research online, following troubles with former webhost.