PADDLING THE ENGLISH CHANNEL...
HONG KONG STYLE
The aim was to continuously paddle (without touching land) the 34km (21miles) of the channel, here in Hong Kong. Our route was based around the bays, beaches and islands of Discovery Bay and Mui Wo.
With incredible conditions, the team set off from Tai Pak Wan and enjoyed their morning on, at times, "glassy" seas. As we ventured out beyond the shelter of Hei Ling Chau we were hit with the developing South East winds and boat wake, adding to the difficulty of the mission ahead. To add to this, the sun broke through and we had 28-29 degrees for the remainder of the adventure. The team were all still up for the challenge and powered on.
As the fatigue set in, we had the most difficult challenge ahead, the choppy seas to the East of Disney. Tim started showing signs of dehydration and hadn’t quite got the nutrition right leading to body cramps and a possible withdrawal from the challenge. However, with Jonny leading the way, driving the team, Tim could not bear Jonny getting one up on him and finishing without him.
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Joining Jonny and Tim were 5 incredible humans who will always be apart of the Lantau Paddle family. Huge thank you and well done to Ben Loran (LP Skipper), Ron Schwartz, Charlie and Brian Ko and Lawrence Wilkinson.
As energy drained from every muscle, the team proudly stepped back on dry land, 35.6km and over 9 hours later!
Our reasons for putting our bodies through this pain, was not only for personal achievement, but to raise awareness to the developing face mask pollution crises we are seeing on our shores. With millions of masks being used daily in Hong Kong alone, if we do not dispose of these single use plastics appropriately, sea life will suffer for decades to come. Face masks sit below the surface and cannot be seen until they wash ashore. What we did see during our paddle, with the calm seas, was how many fish are feeding on the algae of plastics. It is disturbing. We must change our nasty habits and plastic addiction now!
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Check out our Relive video from the day...