Ridiculous reservation!

Mui Wo public pool has only four lanes, with no separate training or babies' pools. 

In most places, this would mean a ban on private swimming lessons but in Mui Wo, they close half the pool instead – during peak hours (Saturday morning).

So 30 members of the paying public have to squeeze into one half of the pool while eight privileged learners have the other half to themselves. 

To make matters worse, the lifeguards spend all their time enforcing the "reserved" rule by chasing swimmers over to the other side. These are the same lifeguards who turn a blind eye to the numerous soakers, cannonball divers, splashers and even water pistol users on the hoi polloi half annoying the lap swimmers.

Up to a couple of weeks ago, they followed the usual rule of closing one lane for lap swimmers only. That was really good as the lap swimmers are a generally well-behaved bunch, swimming in the prescribed clockwise direction and giving way to stronger swimmers.

But this ridiculous way of dividing the pool, the place is now totally chaotic.

I wonder how much it would cost to reserve a lane to myself. It should be value for money, seeing as it comes with at least four lifeguards to enforce my reservation. Anyone wants to chip in?

Making a splash

I got up with a enormous urge to plunge and submerge myself in cool, cool water so I roused Buffalo Wilbur and persuaded him to brave the Mui Wo public swimming pool.

We keep passing the pool and saying we'd go there one day but have been put off by reports about how packed it is all the time and how dirty the water is as a result.

The days of hot weather, however, made the prospect of a swim so inviting.

We were in luck (or out of it, depending on how you see it). It's free entry day today so we saved ourselves HK$20 each.

But that also meant a really crowded pool with kids zig zagging all over the place and adults hogging the lap lane to just soak and catch up with village gossip.

The pool was nice enough – nowhere near Olympic size though – and it had the one requirement I always ask of a pool: it was 1.25m at the deepest end so the water was never over my head.

If the temperature continues to climb, I'd probably go there again. But never on a free-entry day.

First swim of the year – in fluorescent waters

I took off today instead of Buddha's birthday, which is tomorrow, and boy am I glad I did. The sun was out and, as today is technically a working day, the beach was just the way I like it – quiet but with enough people to make a buzz.

Last year, the waters were warm enough by April for me to take my first dip but we've had an extended winter this year so the sea never looked inviting – till today.

So I got my first swim, first ice-cream.. and was feeling such a sense of wellbeing, until I reached home and noticed that the sea had gone a fluorescent green.

Buffalo Wilbur says that's probably just harmless dye that they use to test the sewage system for leaks. But even the intrepid fishermen (the ones who wouldn't mind eating even the ugliest of fishes which have been fed on the strangest of things) are nowhere to be seen.

Coincidence? I think not.

Beach bumming

Finally had a dip in the beautiful crescent beach in Mui Wo. Yes, after all our visits there, I haven't even dipped so much as a toe in the water until now.

Mui Wo was always the end point of our Discovery Bay-Mui Wo walks so we'd always reach the beach all sweaty and shaky-kneed and just dying to get home -- not an optimum condition for admiring the soft sand and clear water.

And our later trips have been house-hunting/contractor-interviewing ones so we'd usually be either jumping from flat to flat or stuck in ours waiting for contractors to arrive.

But we finally took advantage of the good summer weather and a long weekend to hit the sands. The necessities were cheap and easy to find. I bought a HK$16 mat from one of the beach-themed stalls by the seafood centre and, from the Ah Por next to the public library, a HK$38 swimsuit and HK$16 beach towel. Hubby, always a wimp when it comes to cold and water, bought a book from The Bookshop to keep him occupied while I went for my inaugural swim.

I know people make fun of Hong Kong waters. After all, when they were filming Batman here, the rumour was that Batman was supposed to dive into Victoria Harbour but the presence of raw sewage made the idea unfeasible (not true, of course, said director Chris Nolan).

The Environmental ProtectionDepartment website, www.epd.gov.hk, is not encouraging. It warns: "Although about 80 percent of the population of Mui Wo and the surrounding villages are connected to sewerage, some houses still use septic tank and soakaway pit systems for sewage treatment and disposal. Many of these are at close proximity to streams. If treatment systems are not properly maintained, sewage may overflow to the nearby streams and rivers leading to the beach.

"Similarly, sullage from village houses would also be discharged via surface channels to watercourses in the vicinity. Hence the water quality of Silvermine Bay is particularly susceptible to the effect of heavy rain, which may flush pollutants from the hinterland into the beach water."

Euwwww...

The sea pleasantly surprised me, though. The water quality, according to the signboard at the lifeguard's post, was good. I could see my feet in the water. The only piece of rubbish I saw floating was a plastic bag some idiot had left behind after turning it into a makeshift bucket.

And the sand was clean. Cleaner even than in Singapore, where you'd think the law-abiding Singaporeans wouldn't dare to litter. I think it was because the beachgoers really appreciated the clean beach. A whole afternoon of public holiday crowds and there was hardly any litter to be seen anywhere at sunset. When a badly-placed styrofoam cup blew over, a stranger actually picked it up and put it in the bin.

We'd planned to stay there an hour. In the end, we stayed four, reading our books, slurping ice-cream and munching Pringles. Hubby said he hadn't felt this relaxed in ages. And to think we can do this every weekend when we finally move in.

But I think we're still staying out of the water after rainy days, though.