Opinion | Who would be crazy enough to swim across Hong Kong’s Victoria Harbour? Well, me for a start
- The Cross Harbour race returns to Hong Kong on Sunday with 1,500 swimmers tackling the 1km route between Wan Chai and Tsim Sha Tsui
- Post video journalist Alkira Reinfrank is among their number, but does she know what she’s letting herself in for?
Most of my friends think I’m crazy for wanting to swim across Hong Kong’s Victoria Harbour in winter – and to be honest, they might be right.
While the mighty Victoria Harbour is the pride of Hong Kong – flanked by the city’s towering skyline – the water quality is anything but. Floating pieces of garbage and slicks of ferry oil dot the waters between Hong Kong Island and Kowloon, and that’s just pollutants you can see.
Despite the threat of swallowing garbage or contracting an ear infection, I found myself jumping at the opportunity to enter my first Cross Harbour swimming race this year.
The last time the event was held in 2018, and I screwed my nose up at the thought of swimming in the harbour. But a lot has changed in the past few years.
Firstly, thanks strangely enough to Covid-19, I am now more comfortable being in the open water.
I’ve been an avid pool swimmer since I was a child, but the coronavirus forced me out of the comfort of Hong Kong’s aquatic centres and into the ocean, after the government shut down facilities for a large part of 2020 because of pandemic restrictions.
While swimming regularly in the ocean terrified me at first, the open water is where I found a unique sense of freedom and exhilaration that I have never felt in a pool.
