In November 2018, I discovered that there will be a cross-harbour race in Istanbul in July, in the weekend after Fin5 orienteering races which includes 2 WRE competitions. I signed up through a travel agency which I intended to be my first overseas swimming race in my life and do Fin5 before that. At that time, I had just started swim squad training for a month and the longest swimming race I had done was MMIC 3.7 km. I signed…
When I was in secondary school, I needed to do book reports as homework in the English subject. In a particular week, when I was browsing the book shelf in the library, I was attracted by the title “Swimming To Antarctica”, as common sense dictated that Antarctica is icy and it shouldn’t be possible to swim in it, then borrowed that book, read it and did my book report. At that time, I was not a swimmer – although I…
On the last day of my trip, I took a day trip across the Gulf of Finland to Tallinn. I took the M/S Finlandia, Eckerö Line cruise-ferry between Helsinki and Tallinn. That day was a sunny day like my initial days in Stockholm and I couldn’t resist my temptation to go swimming in 5°C water at the long Pirita Beach. That beach is a long sandy beach, typical of the beaches in Baltic countries, with blue flag certification but it…
After FinTrailO day 2 in Tampere, I went to a sauna. I had read from tourist websites that people normally use sauna in combination with swimming, for example, swim – sauna, or sauna – swim, or even alternate between them. After I changed my clothes, I first went swimming for about 28 minutes. The lake temperature was 5°C at that time. Afterwards, I entered the sauna. However, not long after I entered the sauna, people thought that I was in…
I originally signed up for a kayak tour on 2nd May, but it didn’t take place and I got refunded. Therefore I had to find alternative itinerary to fill in the day. I looked at the map and tourist websites, and found out an island called Sandhamn, which is located at the outermost in the archipelago. That island, as shown in the name, is a harbour (hamn means harbour in Swedish). That harbour is one of the entry port when…
As a man living in a subtropical region but afraid of heat, I always complain that how hot Hong Kong is. Even when the others are all putting their wetsuit on in 22°C water, I still feel it to be a bit warm to swim on skin. Hong Kong is never cold, the normal winter temperature is about 16°C, but in the winter just passed, the lowest sea temperature was about 18°C. The coldest water I had swum in the…
On the weekend of Easter, I was so anxious because 3 consecutive days of thunderstorm weathered out my training plan, which I intended to push my endurance limit to see if I was ready for marathon swimming, as I had signed up for a marathon swimming race in July. The anxiety was gone after I knew that I could do 11 km in 2 consecutive days, with 1 of the days in high intensity, which means I could reasonably complete…
I have just finished my longest open water swimming competition in my life today – the DWB. The race was organised by the VRC (Victoria Recreation Club – known for paddling and open water swimming) and this was the 3rd year of the race (the first was in 2017). It was stated as a 5 km race by the organiser. 2 years ago, in 2017, when I saw that the cut-off time was 1 hour and 45 minutes, I thought…
Easter in Hong Kong means 4 days of holidays. I would originally like to use these holidays to push my endurance limit before my final week leading to the DWB race. However, 3 consecutive days of thunderstorm (the day before the holidays, and also the first 2 days of holidays) weathered out my plan so that I could only swim on the last 2 days of holidays. As an Easter tradition, Olivier Baillet invited Edie Hu and some other swimmers…
5 April was a holiday in Hong Kong, and the Sunday group did an extraordinary swim which I joined. The group started off at Stanley Main Beach together, swam to the buoy near To Tei Wan, and split into two. The longer group went round the peninsula and did 9.5 km, while the remaining returned to the beach and did 4 km. However, I couldn’t catch up with the longer group (as they swam at sub 1’40” / 100 m…