36th Cross Tolo Harbour Swimming Race

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Sunday was more active than usual...Up at 6am, I took part in the 36th Cross Tolo Harbour swimming race...

I met friends in Tai Po and we took a mini bus further in to Tai Po. The most amusing part of the morning was boarding the buses that took us to the starting point. We were with a local friend whose dad was picking us up after the race, so we didn't need to leave our belongings on the bus like most people....Thus, we were on the pavement removing our clothes down to our swimming costumes, flip flops and all! Then we had to cross the road.

Picture 5 gweilos (Westerners) crossing the road (this might get a look anyway in Tai Po), dressed in nothing but swim wear, barefoot and carrying a pair of goggles and a swimming hat! We were very much a minority of gweilos...I think I saw about 6 others in the whole race! The application form and all the information was in Chinese, so our friend was the translator!

So, I boarded the bus to the starting point and I was the only gweilo on my bus because our race numbers meant my friends and I were on different buses - there were 35 buses for all the competitors. It was extremely well organised, but then I would expect nothing less in Hong Kong!

Soon we were in the crowds warming up, and the buzzer went. We moved closer to the water and then walked into the harbour, and passed the start line, and off we went. The finish line was 2400m away!

The water wasn't the best...slightly murky, but managed to do front crawl for the most part. When it was choppy, or there were a few people nearby I changed to breaststroke. There were canoeists around making sure people were ok and thank fully making sure we were going in the right direction! At one point I was going off track and he pointed to the finish for me!

It took about an hour to complete the swim, and at the finish line we were given sandals to put on, and given our certificate. Then we collected a couple of drinks and a cake as our reward! It was a really good atmosphere, and a good achievement having never swam open water before.

Thank fully I didn't ache too much Monday morning!!

J x

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Photos

Aerial view of the swim
We swam in the direction of the arrow, 2400m.