A perfect confluence of events

It is now officially the wettest June in recorded weather history in Hong Kong - which means in at least the last 125 years. To date 1,255mm of rain has fallen this month. So amidst this - and in practical terms that means a June during which it has only not rained on six of the days - the coming together of a super-low, bay emptying tide, crystal sunshine, and a sunday afternoon was a lovely moment. The bay is largely sand bottomed but close to the shore there are a lot of rocks and shells and hidden-just-below-the-surface sharp things, making it less than ideal. Shoes of some sort are the way to go. In the middle of the bay however is a sandbank without anything sharp on it, and at a very low tide you can walk out to it, lose the shoes, and have a great time. The colours were amazing - Hong Kong is usually so muted, and the late afternoon was full of golds and green blues - nice and contrasty too. A French guy I know called David was out on the sandbank with his family, teaching his kids how to water-ski. He had this very cool surfboard type thing that he was using - if you look at the design you can see that the boat pulls the board (not the handle) and I think that makes all the difference.

The only missing ingredient is initial stability, in this instance provided by David's wife Pascale. David runs an adventure company in Hong Kong that does corportate outings on boats and kayaks - very cool job I think, though tough too.

The when the sun did go down and we had to start heading in to avoid worsening moods, shooting into the sun also produced some groovy images, I thought. Of the last two, one is taken at home - but I thought it necessary to balance out the numbers.