WHO WE ARE
Having never tried the sport before, about a year ago Jonny brought himself a paddle board to try out a new hobby, and within the first few outings, he was hooked. Being outside in the sunshine, the calm open waters and exploring parts of Hong Kong he could never access via foot, was exactly what he needed to balance out the craziness that call life.
Meet Jonny Haines and Tim Tait. 2 friends who have been living in Hong Kong, teaching at Discovery Bay International School for over 5 years. Jonny, growing up on a farm in the UK, and Tim, being a New Zealander through and through, have always been keen outdoor & sports men.
After the first couple of days, however, Jonny started to discover a dark side of Hong Kong. We all know there is a problem with litter, plastic and foreign objects polluting our oceans and beaches, but until he was out there wading his way through the rubbish bags, old fishing nets, plastic bottles, endless straws and now dead fish the severity of the problem had never hit home hard enough.
On 23rd August 2017, Typhoon Hato hit Hong Kong, reaching the maximum typhoon signal of a T10, and leaving a path of destruction in its way. The following day, Jonny, Tim and many others walked around the normally, beautiful and tranquil Discovery Bay and discovered the mess that had been brought up from the ocean and dumped onto our beaches. There was a foot deep worth of rubbish carpeting every beach in Discovery Bay, with not a grain of sand to be seen among it all. It was a very sad and sorry sight.
Images courtesy of DB Green
Beach cleanups began and the community pulled together to work as hard as they could to bring Discovery Bay back to its full glory. However, people need to be made aware of what is happening to their world, and what consequences their actions have on our planet. Beach cleanups shouldn’t even be needed in the first place.
Having seen these affects first hand, it was decided that they needed to help those already hard at work rectifying this mess in the world, and something needed to be done. Inspired by Bruce Pye and Olivier Baillet's swim around the same path, The Lantau Island Paddle was born.