I have friends in Hong Kong. That is the sort of thing that happens when you live there. One of them is a card-carrying member of the Hong Kong Boating Industry Association. He does not actually own a boat, but he is saving up to buy one. Ask him and he will tell you all about it. Parents have pictures of their children on their phones. Pet owners have videos of their cats knocking things off tables. He has pictures of the boat he wants to buy. It is nice, as boats go.
His girlfriend is a card-carrying member of the American Association for Nude Recreation. She literally has a membership card. She is from Canada, where I would not expect a great deal of recreational outdoor nudity most of the year, but she lives in Hong Kong, where there is even less.
They wanted to rent a boat and find a secluded island for their own naked day. They also wanted some people to join them because renting a decent boat is far from cheap. Lily, Kevin, and I were in. Hong Kong has some beautiful islands, and it always intrigues me how you can live in the city for years and never see most of them. Lily and I recruited Amy, the best massage therapist in all of China, as far as I know. We have all known each other for years.
Lily and Kevin met each other in Canada, long before any of us and long before I ever thought about living in Hong Kong. I met Lily and then Kevin more than ten years ago. I met Amy when she started giving me leg massages nine years ago. We started out professionally, but quickly became friends. I met Sofia about six years ago, immediately after which Sofia and Hu Jian met each other on their own. And since it is a small world after all, and Hong Kong is even smaller, Amy and Hu Jian discovered that their brothers went to school together, though they never crossed paths at the time. Their full biographies are not particularly important. What matters is that we have all been friends long enough that the initial idea of a naked boat day did not repel me. Though I always knew there was a 50/50 chance that it would turn into a regular, clothed boat day.
Lily and Kevin dropped out before anyone paid for the boat. They offered to pay their share anyway since it was a last minute cancellation, but that was completely unnecessary. Though we are all on our summer vacations, Kevin also had work to do. And I think he and Lily were looking forward to their own naked day at the big house, as long as I was out to sea.
That left four people on a boat designed to hold six to eight. I think more space is always a good idea whenever people are on a boat, especially if everyone is naked. We were never going to spend the night, so we never needed to adapt to close quarters. I was in it for the wide open islands anyway.
Hu Jian took care of all the boat logistics. He was the boat person in our group and this trip was his idea. Amy and I met at her house and went down to Kwun Tong together, where Sofia, Hu Jian, and the boat were waiting. The boat was moored in the middle of the water with a bunch of other boats, so we took a smaller boat taxi out to our boat. Hong Kong does not have nearly enough spaces to park all the boats, forcing most of them to park in the water without any kind of dock. That is the main reason Hong Kong has so many typhoon shelters.
From Kwun Tong, we sailed out of Kowloon Bay, into the South China Sea, around Hong Kong Island, and headed west. On a map, it makes more sense to go west through Victoria Harbour and then southwest between Hong Kong Island and Lantau, but that area holds something like 90% of all the boat traffic in Hong Kong. The way we went was faster, required less paperwork, and was more scenic. I suppose if you have never been to Hong Kong, sailing from Kowloon Bay through Victoria Harbour would be the bees knees, but anyone who has lived in Hong Kong for more than a month has seen Victoria Harbour from every angle. The islands south of Hong Kong Island are less frequently explored by pretty much everyone.
Our destination was the Soko Islands, less than 35km southwest of Kowloon Bay. I have no idea how many nautical miles that is. It took us about two hours, but we made a few stops and were in no hurry to get there.
Hu Jian chose the Soko Islands for a few reasons. The islands are easy to get to from Kowloon or Hong Kong Island, and even easier from Lantau, assuming you have your own boat. There are no ferries because they are completely uninhabited. North of Lantau is a rather large airport, freeways, and a lot of commercial and private boats going all over the place. South of Lantau is pretty much nothing but wild islands that most people never visit. One of the islands also has Sofia's favorite beach in Hong Kong. It is not especially large, but the sand is soft and white, and the beach is probably always deserted. There is a tiny pier on the island where we could have parked the boat, but getting to the beach from the pier requires a bit of a hike, and there are no trails. It was much easier to park the boat in the cove and swim to the beach.
Hu Jian was the only one wearing clothes by the time we arrived at the Soko Islands. He claimed to be busy driving the boat, but he was clearly the shy one in our group. At Kowloon Bay, we were all fully clothed. Technically, it is illegal to be nude in any public space in Hong Kong. Inside the cabin of a boat is considered private, while out on the deck is public, even on a large body of water with no other people visible to the naked eye. Go nude on the deck of a boat in the middle of Kowloon Bay and you might get a visit from men in uniforms. Go nude south of Lamma Island and no one will ever know or care. Supposedly, Lamma Island has an unofficial nude beach, but I would think it is too populated. Then again, I know Lantau has a nude beach, and it has 15 times as many people.
Amy and I wore bathing suits at the beginning of our boat trip, but Sofia, as the official nudist, shed her clothes as soon as we were clear of the shipping lanes from Stanley. We parked the boat at a little cove on the southern end of Lamma Island. Our goal was to go swimming and maybe explore the island a little. In the clean water between the island and the boat, Amy and I realized that our bathing suits were unnecessary. Though a few thousand people live on Lamma, they all live on the northern half of the island. While Amy, Sofia, and I floated and Hu Jian manned the boat, we pretty much abandoned the idea of exploring inland. The choice between air drying on the boat deck and putting all of our clothes back on to hike toward civilization and overpriced tourist trinkets in the oppressive humidity was an easy one. Lamma Island is a bit of a haven for artists, expats, and alternative types, but even on the most hippie island in Hong Kong, wearing clothes would have been required. Sofia had the right idea, so we carried on to the Soko Islands.
Tuesday, August 24, 2021
Friday, August 6, 2021
Naked Day 2021 part 1
The Swimming
Have you ever walked around an abandoned Chinese fishing village naked? I suppose I can add that to the list of thing I never even thought about doing until it actually happened.
I have what is probably a not at all unique relationship with nudity. I am comfortable naked. I love being naked outdoors; the more natural the environment, the better. But I do not like to be naked around other people, unless I know them exceptionally well. I am perfectly comfortable with my body. As a dancer, I know it very well. We have been good friends for a long time. I am 30 years old, but could easily pass for 29. I run or bicycle every morning. I go to the gym most nights. Now that I do more choreography than performing, I dance less at work than I used to, and not at all during dress rehearsals and performances, but my typical work day involves far more physical activity than the typical office job. I like to think I am in decent shape. But I do not particularly like being watched.
I have been on stage since childhood, in one capacity or another. But never naked. I feel completely comfortable in front of an audience, and love getting applause. It is addictive. I have absolutely no problem being watched while performing. Performing without an audience is like potatoes without salt. At the same time, I feel nothing but uncomfortable being stared at off the clock.
I grew up around lakes. I come from the Land of 10,000 Lakes. It was not nearly as rural as Little House On the Prairie, but we used to go swimming in one lake or another every summer. Clothing was not always required, when we were too young to know what an abomination our sinful bodies were. Outside of lakes, there were rivers and swimming pools. My family never had a pool in the backyard, but I always knew someone who did. As a child, my best friends had the best pools in the neighborhood. I like to hope that was a coincidence. I spent a healthy percent of my childhood under water. One of my goals in life was always to own a house with a swimming pool. I now own a third of three apartments, all of which have pools on the estate. I don't live in any of them.
Finding a clean swimming pool in Hong Kong is difficult. There are plenty of public pools. None of them are free, as far as I know. All of them have the potential to be toilets. Literally. Seeing what the general public does in Chinese public pools has left me scarred for life. Maybe I am being too hard on them, and it most likely does not happen every day, but more than once is too much.
The big house at Clear Water Bay has a swimming pool. It is professionally cleaned on a regular basis. Most importantly, it is private. At most, I have to share it with two other people, both of whom I know exceptionally well. To me, the best reason to stay at that house is to use the swimming pool. Also to me, swimming with clothes on is ridiculous. If I have access to a clean pool, I am swimming. If it is private, I am swimming naked.
This summer was our tenth anniversary of staying at the Clear Water Bay house. It is also the tenth anniversary of my first visit to a nude beach, though that was in December. Despite living in the Land of 10,000 Lakes, I never went to any nude beaches there. My first nude beach was in Hong Kong, Land of 10,000 Islands. It was a nice little beach on the southern end of Lantau. Like most beaches in Hong Kong, it is almost always deserted. Especially in December.
I like to have at least one naked day whenever I stay at the big house. When we all lived in Hong Kong, it was pretty easy to have a day to myself at the house. We all have different schedules, and never spend every waking minute together, in Hong Kong or Taiwan.
I cannot rationally explain why I always want a naked day at the big house. Obviously, swimming naked is the way to go, and the sun and relatively fresh air on the pool deck feel good against bare skin. A light rain can be nice, too. But inside the house, there really is no difference between clothed and nude. The entire house is climate controlled, there is nothing dangerous about it in that secluded neighborhood, and since I am alone, there are no adult-rated shenanigans afoot. At this point, it might just be more traditional than anything else.
Except this year's naked day at the big house did not happen at the house, or anywhere near Clear Water Bay.
I have what is probably a not at all unique relationship with nudity. I am comfortable naked. I love being naked outdoors; the more natural the environment, the better. But I do not like to be naked around other people, unless I know them exceptionally well. I am perfectly comfortable with my body. As a dancer, I know it very well. We have been good friends for a long time. I am 30 years old, but could easily pass for 29. I run or bicycle every morning. I go to the gym most nights. Now that I do more choreography than performing, I dance less at work than I used to, and not at all during dress rehearsals and performances, but my typical work day involves far more physical activity than the typical office job. I like to think I am in decent shape. But I do not particularly like being watched.
I have been on stage since childhood, in one capacity or another. But never naked. I feel completely comfortable in front of an audience, and love getting applause. It is addictive. I have absolutely no problem being watched while performing. Performing without an audience is like potatoes without salt. At the same time, I feel nothing but uncomfortable being stared at off the clock.
I grew up around lakes. I come from the Land of 10,000 Lakes. It was not nearly as rural as Little House On the Prairie, but we used to go swimming in one lake or another every summer. Clothing was not always required, when we were too young to know what an abomination our sinful bodies were. Outside of lakes, there were rivers and swimming pools. My family never had a pool in the backyard, but I always knew someone who did. As a child, my best friends had the best pools in the neighborhood. I like to hope that was a coincidence. I spent a healthy percent of my childhood under water. One of my goals in life was always to own a house with a swimming pool. I now own a third of three apartments, all of which have pools on the estate. I don't live in any of them.
Finding a clean swimming pool in Hong Kong is difficult. There are plenty of public pools. None of them are free, as far as I know. All of them have the potential to be toilets. Literally. Seeing what the general public does in Chinese public pools has left me scarred for life. Maybe I am being too hard on them, and it most likely does not happen every day, but more than once is too much.
The big house at Clear Water Bay has a swimming pool. It is professionally cleaned on a regular basis. Most importantly, it is private. At most, I have to share it with two other people, both of whom I know exceptionally well. To me, the best reason to stay at that house is to use the swimming pool. Also to me, swimming with clothes on is ridiculous. If I have access to a clean pool, I am swimming. If it is private, I am swimming naked.
This summer was our tenth anniversary of staying at the Clear Water Bay house. It is also the tenth anniversary of my first visit to a nude beach, though that was in December. Despite living in the Land of 10,000 Lakes, I never went to any nude beaches there. My first nude beach was in Hong Kong, Land of 10,000 Islands. It was a nice little beach on the southern end of Lantau. Like most beaches in Hong Kong, it is almost always deserted. Especially in December.
I like to have at least one naked day whenever I stay at the big house. When we all lived in Hong Kong, it was pretty easy to have a day to myself at the house. We all have different schedules, and never spend every waking minute together, in Hong Kong or Taiwan.
I cannot rationally explain why I always want a naked day at the big house. Obviously, swimming naked is the way to go, and the sun and relatively fresh air on the pool deck feel good against bare skin. A light rain can be nice, too. But inside the house, there really is no difference between clothed and nude. The entire house is climate controlled, there is nothing dangerous about it in that secluded neighborhood, and since I am alone, there are no adult-rated shenanigans afoot. At this point, it might just be more traditional than anything else.
Except this year's naked day at the big house did not happen at the house, or anywhere near Clear Water Bay.
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