Mui Wo sartorial style

He's keepin' it real.

Btw, he put on special clean pyjamas for his trip into Central.

Fog on the water

The ferry captain was taking no chances this morning. Go slow, foghorn, the works... They must be extra worried especially after the Lamma IV incident.

Which got me thinking... How often do they check the life jackets on board? How do we know they all work? Or is that just me being paranoid after reading this Huffington Post article?

See what I found at Oxfam

So cute I had to get it. HK$150. But you can have it for HK$300... hee hee!

Crowding on a work day

Mui Wo residents have noticed that the ferries are getting fuller these days - and not just on weekends. This is the crowd for the 9.10am ferry on a weekday! In the past, you'd probably only see crowds like this on special occasions, such as the Silvermine Bay Music Festival.

Some of the traffic are tourists but there are more residents too. Given how high rents are all over Hong Kong, Mui Wo is getting quite popular as a place to live. A real estate agent told me it's the new Sai Kung. I think it's more like the new Discovery Bay.

Hopefully, First Ferry will cotton on and stop using the smelly (and puke-inducing) small ferries for the Mui Wo route.  

My favourite island

I love sitting on the left side of the ferry going into Central because halfway through, I get to see my favourite island. It's called Kau Yi Chau or Chair Island because it looks like a giant armchair from the top. But from my perspective on the ferry, it looks like a crouching cat (with a big butt). Yeah, I am juvenile that way.

National Day ferry collision

That's the boat that sank off Yung Shue Wan on October 1. It looks pretty substantial, so it's hard to imagine it sinking within minutes.

I take the ferry every week day to work and on the whole I find the staff are really professional. 
Unlike in the bad old days, these ferries have radar so how could the collision have happened?

The only worry I have as a non-swimmer (ok, as a non-water treader) is the condition and location of the lifejackets. They say it's under the seat but in some ferries, you have to run to the lifejacket cupboard and fiddle with the lock before you can access them. Imagine doing that in pitch darkness while your boat is slipping into the water.

No seats on board

Our lives revolve round ferry times so it is really irritating to rush for one only to be told you can't get on board because it is full. Yup, poor Buffalo Wilbur had to wait for 40 minutes for the next ferry today because the 9.10am one was completely packed with tourists. They promised him an extra ferry but what they really meant was "wait for the next ferry".

Autumn is peak tourist season for Mui Wo and a bit of forward planning could have solved the problem. 

It would have helped if the ferry people had communicated with each other and let the big ferry stay on when they saw the crowds at the pier. Instead, they replaced it with the small one -- which was barely enough to contain the tourists, let alone regular commuters.

Typhoon day again

Ominous clouds gather to herald the arrival of Typhoon Kai-tak. 

But I must say that, after Vicente, Kai-tak was surprisingly well-behaved, staying on its expected path and coming close to Hong Kong overnight so there wasn't much disruption.

The T8 signal was lowered in time for the peak-hour ferries to start up. How civilised!

The only uncivilised note was the selfish people who hogged the whole row (by plonking themselves in the middle seat) in the first few ferries to resume –  even though it was obvious that these ferries would be packed. For shame!

Green Island lighthouse

I usually doze off in the ferry but I try and make sure I'm awake to take in the view of my favourite lighthouse. There's precious little information on it but I did find this link on lighthouses in Hong Kong.

For those who are too lazy to click on, this is what it says:


Green Island (Tsing Chau) 
1905 (station established 1875). Active; focal plane 37 m (121 ft); white flash every 10 s. 17.5 m (58 ft) round granite tower with lantern and gallery, painted white. 1st order Fresnel lens in use. The keeper's house and other light station buildings are leased to to the Wu Oi Christian Centre as a youth drug rehabiliation center. 

Google has a satellite view. The lighthouse was built to carry the 1st order lens made available when the Cape D'Aguilar lighthouse was replaced by the Waglan Island lighthouse. The station was recognized as a Hong Kong Declared Monument in 2008. Located at the southwest point of Green Island, a small island off the west end of Hong Kong Island. Accessible only by boat; there are views from various ferries in Hong Kong Harbour. Site open, tower closed. ARLHS HOK-002; HK-069; Admiralty F3538; NGA 19460.

Hmm... I wonder if I should have taken drugs as a youth because the rehab centers appear to be in places with wonderful views. Joke, joke!

Perfect (10) storm

First typhoon signal 10 in 13 years and I must confess it terrified me. We didn't get very much sleep last night as we rushed about taping down the windows and then, just as we started to fall asleep, things started crashing about.

We waited for the ferries to start operating again but this was the sign that met us at the pier. Really? We knew since 8am that the signal was going to be downgraded to a T3. It takes close to three hours to react? And why, when they know how much pent-up demand there is for people desperate to go to work, do they put the slow ferry first?

Kudos to the New Lantao Bus company for getting buses out within minutes of the signal being lowered. The ride to Tung Chung extended my journey time by an hour but heck, that's better than having to explain to the boss why I could only get into office four hours after the T8 was lowered.

Luckily, good ol' McD's opened early for the hungry hoards waiting to get to work.

Barefoot in Central

The problem with only just breaking out my summer shoes is precisely that – they break. Having been kept dormant in the shoe cabinet for the past six months, soles come unstuck and sandals fall apart.

One fell apart just as I was leaving the ferry at Central and it made me suddenly realise what a long way I walk each day to reach civilisation. Imagine having to trudge up the overhead bridge and along the vast expanse of walkway on shoes that threaten to break your ankle every three steps.

It was way too early for any shops to be open and even if they'd been, the nearest place was IFC mall. I wasn't about to spend HK$500 on a pair of emergency Geox or something from Pedder Red.

To make things worse, this was a day of "special deployment", which meant the ferry docked at Pier 5 instead of the usual 6. So it was hoppity skip, hoppity skip to the Star Ferry pier... where I decided that if I wanted to get anywhere at least by noon, I was better off ditching the shoes and going barefoot.

It was a strange experience walking barefoot along the Stock Exchange and Jardine House, passing the suited or stilettoed office workers. Not something I'd want to repeat in a hurry.

I finally got my shoe fixed – temporarily – at the cobblers at Central MTR station.

But that experience set me thinking. Normally, if a shoe breaks, you can just turn round, grab a taxi and go home to change your shoe... but not if you're a ferry commuter.

So why don't they have emergency slipper vending machines at piers? And come to think of it, a couple dispensing umbrellas wouldn't go amiss either.

Or has the whole trauma of walking barefoot in Central addled my brains?

Foggy mornings

A sign that Spring is in the air.

Those irritating announcements

A few months back, when Rainbow won the village elections, he got his minions to give out feedback forms about ferry services. One of the questions was: Are the announcements too much, just enough, too little. I circled "too much".

I might as well have thrown my form into the bin because soon after that First Ferry upped the number of announcements. There are additional ones about wearing seatbelts and coughing into tissue papers. In fact, there are so many announcements now that they are still droning on even after we have left the bay in the morning.

The worst one is the new welcome announcement. The English announcer alternates between drawling and over-enunciation and emphasises all the wrong syllables: "WeeALcome to the FIRST feARRY..."

Argh! As if putting up with cockroaches, the smell of stale food and chewing gum is not enough. Was the fare hike just so they could pay someone to make more unwelcome announcements?

Can normal service resume already?

I like living in a tourist destination.

But I almost missed my ferry home today because of the huge number of tourists, both local and from abroad, taking advantage of the long Chinese New year holidays – and blocking my way to the pier.

To be fair, they were just being tourists.

They ambled along the overhead bridge, taking photos and generally looking gormless. They came to abrupt stops at the head of stairs to change direction, causing those behind them to collide like dominoes.

And on the ferry, they paused just beyond the gangplank, blocking others behind them, as they dithered over where to sit.

Those pushing past them stumbled on pull-along bags others had carelessly left on the aisle.

How I miss the savvy ferry commuters who have internalised the unwritten rules: give way to people in a hurry on the overhead bridge, pay by Octopus, head straight for your usual seat, don't take up the entire row...

Ah well, hopefully normal service will resume on Monday.

Train woes

Living in Mui Wo makes for crazy commutes. Mine takes three hours a day... if everything goes according to plan.

When there's a glitch in the matrix - like a power outage today - it becomes pull-your-hair-out crazy. Trains on the Island Line were 11 minutes apart so you can imagine the crowd build-up.

Luckily I took this photo before the train pulled in. Because we were jammed like sardines in the carriage, I could hardly reach for my camera without accidentally punching someone in the guts.

Rough sea warning

Typhoon Signal 3 + small ferry = 1 very sick me staggering out at Central Pier No 6.

See how the spray comes up over the window?

Safe subdivision

The walk from the ferry pier to the MTR station every morning can be a pain, especially when there's a very hot weather warning.

Thankfully, I had this hilarious bus ad to keep me amused.

Remember, folks, unauthorised subdivision of units may CAUSE life.

To prevent unwanted babies, wear a condom when subdividing.

You tell 'em, Samantha!

Every time I look out of the window and see the small ferry waiting to take me to work, it puts me in a bad mood. "Let it go," Buffalo Wilbur keeps saying.

I know, I know, it's a small grumble try but it does get me rant-y.

Thank goodness I am not alone. Way to go, Samantha!

SCMP letter: Ferry change backward move

I would like to raise a question with New World First Ferry regarding the 8.30am fast ferry from Mui Wo to Central.

On one occasion it put one of the smaller boats on this run as opposed to the regular catamaran.

Passengers accepted this as sometimes there are boat faults and it is understandable. However, since April 1, when First Ferry increased passenger fares from HK$25.50 to HK$28.40, it has been a smaller boat on the 8.30 route.

Could the company please explain the increase in cost and the decrease in passenger consideration?

The smaller ferries are obviously less comfortable, often have an unpleasant odour and are invariably more cramped.

Why should it have changed firstly when the prices have been increased and secondly given that the catamaran has been the regular 8.30 ferry for a considerable period of time? Surely the commuters who use this ferry service deserve better than this?

Samantha Bell, Lantau

Fog!

I woke up to find the ferry pier had disappeared in a white out.

The ferry was delayed today and there was a special "go slow" requirement because the visibility was less than 2km so the journey took about 45 minutes instead of the usual half hour.

Kudos to the ferry crew. I wouldn't have driven, much less sailed, in this weather - even if my vehicle was equipped with the latest radar systems. It was like sailing into a dense white cloud.

If only I can get Paul McCartney's song out of my head. All together now: "Mull of Kintyre, Oh mist rolling in from the sea..."

Grrr, small ferries again

Regus, which provides serviced and virtual offices, recently did a survey and found that an average commute for Hongkongers are 29.2 minutes. The global average is 29.

Only 13 percent -- those of us in the Outlying Islands I can imagine -- have to travel over 45 minutes each way. (Mine, by the way, takes one and a half hours each way).

The main stress of commuting are delays, service interruptions, pollution, overheating, loud mobile phone conversations, rude behavior from other passengers, dangerous drivers, and bad smells from other commuters.

They should add "small ferries" to that list.

Okay, you may say I am spoilt and that I should be grateful there even is a ferry to get me to Central in 25 minutes rather than the Mui Wo-Tung Chung-Central route which will take me an hour at least.

But I really really hate the small fast ferries.

What's wrong with them? They're cramped and claustrophobic, too small to take the regular commuters going to work. We all have to squeeze into every available seat (thus risking the other stresses like bad smells and loud mobile phone conversations).

Plus they're less stable than the big ones so, old hand though I am, I still end up seasick by the time we get into Central.

I suspect our regular big ferry has been given to the profitable Cheung Chau route as First Ferry is a ferry short after one collided with a pilot boat a week or so ago.

So the situation is only temporary, I hope.

In the meantime, it's back to accupressure bands and bottles of sour plum every morning for me. Bah!