Diving Thoughts

Nothing to do with diving, but after a really exciting final, Fiji beat South Africa 26-24 in the Hong Kong Sevens. The South Africans had a chance to force the match into extra time after a late try in the corner. But their captain, Mzwandile Stick, was unable to kick the conversion.

Fiji actually started quite slowly and our friendly Fijian diver, Vinnie, was  fairly pessimistic about their chances. But they improved throughout the tournament and ended up playing some great rugby.

Another great tournament and now we’ll all have to wait for next year. On a personal note, my son came over from England to watch his first Sevens  since we had him in the South Stand when he was 8 months old. I think he’ll remember a lot more about this year.

Tomorrow (Saturday 28th March 2009) is Earth Hour, and WWF have sent round a reminder to encourage people to turn their lights off for one hour at 8:30pm. Here’s the gist of their message:

Last call: Tomorrow is Earth Hour!! Please remember to switch off your lights at 8:30pm tomorrow (28 March)!

2848 cities and towns in 84 countries are joining Earth Hour 2009!

Tomorrow is Earth Hour, and we now have 2848 cities and towns in 84 countries committed! From the Chatham Islands to the Arctic Sea, people from all corners of the world will turn off their lights for Earth Hour to show their concern on climate change – the first global vote for the planet!

In Hong Kong, the Hong Kong airport will switch off the non-essential lighting at HKIA Tower and Airport World Trade Centre for one hour to show their support. More than 500 companies and organizations, more than 1700 buildings are participating across Hong Kong.

24 Jan:

A bit late to post this but in January, a week after the extensive hill fires in Pat Sin Leng, Rita and I set off to hike the final 3 stages of the Wilson Trail, which go up and over Pat Sin Leng.

We’d covered the first 3.5km of stage 8 a couple of weeks earlier, so we started from Tai Wo KCR station. First of all we had to overcome the incredibly confusing signposts, one of which was at a crossroads with the Wilson Trail signed in all 4 directions! We ended up taking a big detour around Parc Versailles, along Mui Shu Hang Road. Finally we found the path and headed up Cloudy Hill. On the way up we got some good views over Hong Lok Yuen, and back over Tai Wo to the earlier parts of stage 8. It’s a long drag up Cloudy Hill up a seemingly never-ending set of steps. A couple of lower peaks before the final climb up to the transmitter station at the top, which marks the end of stage 8. Since there is no transport up there, if you’re just planning to do stage 8, you’re better off carrying on and finishing at Hok Tau Reservoir.

After a quick water break we headed down an incredibly steep road, before branching off on the path down to Hok Tau Reservoir. The reservoir is quite small, but very pretty, surrounded by shady trees it is a welcome break from the exposed hillside you climb up from Tai Wo. After a short stroll half way round the reservoir, it’s back uphill again, this time up towards the ridge that becomes Pat Sin Leng. It’s a long, steep climb up a rocky path, that finally heads up on to the ridge line. All along here we could see the effects of the previous weekend’s fire. At one point we came across one of the sigposts that was lying on the ground, partially burnt, but still clearly recognisable. A previous hiker had laid it down pointing in roughly the right direction.

The views were good from up here, we could see Luk Keng where we were hoping to finish, as well as Shenzhen and the former Russian aircraft carrier, the Minsk, in the background. Pressing on along the ridge we came Pat Sin Leng itself, which refers to 8 minor peaks over a 1km distance, each named after a Chinese god. Rita carefully explained to me who all these were, and I promptly forgot, as I was more concerned with putting one foot in front of the other and getting to the end. Finally we reached the final peak, above Tai Mei Tuk, and the end of stage 9.

Steep steps down took us to the path towards Luk Keng and we carried along for several kilometres before turning left. Along here were some deserted old villages, which are now overgrown with trees. There was a right turn off this path that also led to Luk Keng, but we carried straignt on towards the Edward Youde Pavilion. We bypassed that and eventually hit a water supplies road that led down towards Nam Chung village.

Part way along we came across the end of the trail. Now I have a number of criticisms of the Wilson Trail. The signing is poor in some parts, but that can be solved with a good map and a bit of patience. Some of the distance markers seem to vary a bit from the 5oo metres apart that they are supposed to be, but then I’ve not actually measured them accurately. But my two main complaints, are that I don’t know how long the trail is, and I don’t like where it finishes.

First, the length. The documentation I have seen seems to list it as 78km. Now I suppose that could include the MTR section between Quarry Bay and Yau Tong (or Lam Tin, since Yau Tong MTR didn’t exist when the route was originally set up).  But nowhere have I seen the actual distance that you walk mentioned. The final marker post is number 137, which if they are at 500m intervals would seem to imply that it is 168.5km long. Which brings me to my second complaint, whether it is 78km or 167.5km, why? Is this some auspicious number? Now I could accept it if the trail finished somewhere sensible, like Luk Keng which does at least have a minibus to Fanling. But it doesn’t! It finishes half way down a water supplies department service road, approximately 2km from Nam Chung village and the main Luk Keng road. In short, it finishes in the middle of nowhere, after completing an apparently arbitrary distance. At least it starts at a bus stop, but it doesn’t finish anywhere near a bus stop or any other form of public transport. It’s as if they bought 137 marker posts and resolved to stop whenever they ran out. It’s as if the Maclehose trail had stopped after 96.5km, part way along the catchwater outside Tuen Mun! I just think former Governor Wilson should have a word with AFCD and find out what they could possibly have been thinking! After all, if they’d carried on to marker post 140, it would have finished in Luk Keng, at a sensible end point, after walking a sensible 70km.

Anyway after we’d finished, we then had to walk 2km down to the road from where we were very fortunate to pick up a minibus to Fanling.

• Section 8: 3.5 km from marker posts 98 – 105 took us 1 hour 30 minutes
• Section 9: 10.5km from marker post 105 – 126 took us 3 hours 50 minutes
• Section 10: 5.5km from marker post 126 – 137 took us 1 hour 40  minutes

More on whales, this time Minke whales. Australian have used an infra red camera to find whales that have dived under the surface of Antarctic waters. The camera is mounted on an aircraft flying over the pack ice and is able to identify trails of warmer water that are left behind when a whale breaks the meniscus on the surface. In sufficiently calm conditions, the whales bring up slightly warmer water from below and the infra red camera is able to see the resulting trails.

Scientists hope that they will now be able to get a more accurate count of how many minkes are in Antarctic waters. Current surveys rely heavily on statistical formulae to include whales that are under the water and therefore unseen.

There’s more information in the Sydney Morning Herald.

According to the Standard this morning, the Hong Kong Humpback has moved slowly from the Lamma channel to Po Toi (perhaps lured by the excellent seafood restaurant that we were at 10 days ago).  According to the article, experts now think that it may be a confused juvenile. It’s probably confused because it’s wondering what happened to the visibility and where all the fish are! Anyway the theory is that the whale has lost its sense of direction and is confused by the shallow water and heavy sea traffic.

Hopefully in a couple more days it will have got back to open water and be able to reorient itself and head to the Arctic feeding grounds.

The 10 metre humpback whale that was spotted in the East Lamma Channel was yesterday off Cape d’Aguilar. Dr Hung, director of the Hong Kong Cetacean Research Project, believes it is swimming normally and is hopeful that left to its own devices, it will make its way out of Hong Kong waters and find its migration route to the Arctic feeding grounds. It is likely that the whale became separated from its group near Hong Kong.

One cause for concern is the risk of collision in the busy shipping lanes, sthe o Marine Department have issued a warning to shipping to be cautious and sail at a safe speed. Another worry is that the whale will be inadvertently harassed by sightseers, which is a potential problem with the weekend coming up.

On Monday a humbpack whale was spotted in the East Lamma Channel by Marine Police, who alerted the Agriculture, Fisheries and Conservation Department. This is the first record of such a creature in Hong Kong waters. It is possible that humpback whales could pass close to Hong Kong  as they migrate between their breeding grounds in the tropics and feeding grounds in the Arctic. The suspicion is that this individual just got lost.

At the time of the SCMP report, the whale was just “milling” around in the area. Dr. Hung, from the Hong Kong Cetacean Research Project, is hopeful that it will find its way out of the channel and continue its journey. We can only hope that it doesn’t meet one of the true leviathans of the seas around Hong Kong – a container ship.

And some more good news, Japanese whalers have not yet arrived!

The photo above is from this article on the SCMP’s website (subscription required).

The ongoing inquiry into the 1941 sinking of HMAS Sydney has concluded that a body which was washed up on Christmas Island in February 1942 came from the ship. It had drifted in a life raft called a Carley float for 3 months and is the only body to have been recovered. A theory for what happened to the others was raised ealier at the inquiry.

The body was buried on Christmas Island by a district officer, and there were doubts as to whether it was an Australian or a sailor. However it was exhumed in 2006 and forensically examined before being reburied with full military honours in Geraldton last year.

The examination of four press studs showed that they had the markings of “Ca Au”, which inducated they had been made by an Australian company. Fragments of textiles that were attached to the press studs indicated that he had been wearing a boiler suit of the type worn by Australian sailors.

The commissioner of inquiry into the sinking, Terence Cole, QC, found that the remains were those of a sailor from the HMAS Sydney. A fragment of metal taken from the skull contained manganese, chromium and silicon, all of which were used by Germany to produce armour piercing shells.

Here is a link to an article from the Sydney Morning Herald.

Evidence from an inquiry into the sinking of HMAS Sydney in November 1941 contradicts a theory that crewmen were machine gunned in their life raft by men the German ship Kormoran.

All 645 men from the Sydney were lost. The theory grew up because one life raft was recovered by HMAS Helos shortly after the battle, and it had  a large number of holes in i. However expert witnesses have studied the 339 ruptures in the float and believe they were caused by shrapnel from a shell exploding rather than by bullets.  The damage came from a horizontal angle and was more likely to have happened when the raft was on the ship’s deck, whereas if they had been caused by bullets, the angles of entry would have been from the top. The metal that was recovered from the float also looks more likely to have come from the casing of a German shell than bullets.

This seems to vindicate the German survivors from the Kormoran, which also sank after the battle, who have always denied shooting Australian sailors after the Sydney went down.

HMAS Sydney was a light cruiser and was sunk on 19 November 1941 by the Kormoran, a German auxiliary cruiser. Last year both wrecks were  found off Western Australia.

You can read more about the inquiry from the Sydney Morning Herald.

Scientists have discovered a rather bizarre fish in a Burmese stream. It has bony fangs which have earned it the nickname of the Dracula Fish. Researchers suspect that it lost its teeth, but then evolved bony fangs, which the males seem to use for sparring with each other. This behaviour has been seen in captivity, but they don’t appear to draw blood, unlike their better-known Transylvanian namesake.

The fish are only around 17mm long and were discovered as part of a consignment of aquarium fish. Researchers originally mistook them for something else and it was only after several of the fish died and were examined under a microscope, that the bony fangs were spotted.

Dr. Britz of the National History Museum has named them Danionella dracula, in a nod to Bram Stoker’s famous creation.

There is an article on the BBC’s website.

The BBC is reporting on some experiments being run at a “coral lab” at the Interuniversity Institute for Marine Science at Eilat in Israel. They are cultivating corals in the Red Sea and then taking them to the institute to research into the effects of acidification.

The oceans are slightly alkaline, with a pH of 8.1 (pre-1750 average was 8.2). But they are becoming more acidic as more CO2 is absorbed into them. The tests being done here have taken that pH down to 7.9, and then to 7.6. Current estimates are that the world’s oceans will reach 7.9 by the end of the century, so these exeperiments are looking at situations significantly worse than expected, which makes them controversial. Dr. Maoz Fine, who is  carrying them out, defends this by arguing that we need to find out as soon as possible how different corals react by pusing their physiology to the extreme.

Current findings look like bad news for slow-growing corals which form the bedrock of coral reefs. But they are also showing problems for a type of pink algae that helps glue the reefs together, which implies that reefs may start to crumble as ocean acifidication increases.

Tom Goreau from the Global Coral Reef Alliance takes another view and feels that the increase in direct surface temperature as a result of global warming is a larger  and far more immediate problem.Recent bleaching episodes around the world would tend to bear this out.

Either way, something needs to be done to reduce the impact as soon as possible.

If you’re interested, I’d recommend reading this article from the BBC’s website.

The New Zealand Herald are reporting that the man who died while diving near Moturoa island was Keith Weeds from Kerikeri. He was apparently diving with a companion when he disappeared and was later found dead on the seabed.

His son apparently runs Paihia Dive HQ, and was involved in the sinking of the Navy frigate Canterbury in the Bay of Islands in 2007.