Freedom Cruise I

Colorful Chute

We had a nice sail on Sunday in variable to good sailing conditions. We left around 0815 and motored for the first few hours. As usual, our idea was going to Wai Ling Ding and the Limas afterwards. Luckily, as we were abeam of Lamma, the wind picked up and we were able to unrolling jib and setting the main.  Interestingly… when we came closer to Wai Ling Ding, we heard banging noises…

… some of our crew attributed that to our sails. But knowing the boat very well, I know it wasn’t. The closer we came to WLD the louder it got. As we were around 2NM from the reef, we suddenly saw a water fountain there and, a few seconds later, a heavy bang from an explosion. WTH are the doing. The bombing got louder (they were also setting up explosives on land) and we got the hell out of there – we hadn’t had cell coverage there otherwise I would have checked if there was war. The bombing kept going for a while while we left WLD in our wake.

What should have been the mother of all fishing trips…

The girls do what they do best - testing equipment (today: the new bean bag)

Our friends Nik and Diana hadn’t been out with us on Vega yet, so we took the chance and planned for a full-day fishing trip to our favorite fishing & cruising grounds, the Limas. The stage was set for 29th of July, with a forecast F2, the HK Observatory with good reason does not give out any wind direction. While we are a sailboat, it does not mean that we can’t motor and motor-sail (although the latter requires more than apparent wind) and we were sure there will be a touch of breeze every now and then. And besides, we wanted fish.

That I’m not opening “the mother of all fishing trips” blog entry with a photo of a fish, should probably be an indication of what did not happen on the trip. Anyway, read more after the break.

Limas, Wai Ling Ding & a Spanish Mackerel

Taking advantage of Tatiana being in Italy visiting her family, we went out on two successive weekends to go for a short sail on saturday and a long sail on sunday each. Obviously, our choise is clear: To head over to Wai Ling Ding and the Limas. While on the short saturday cruises it wasn’t possible to go to the Limas we settled for Wai Ling Ding instead.