So, our Canon 500DSLR has fallen in the South China Sea. It hit the water on Saturday, August 28, 2010 at around 5 or 6 p.m. Hong Kong time.

It was in my boyfriend’s backpack when he fell backward into the water as he tried to board a seadoo. The seadoo had suddenly lurched backward, carried up and back by strong, aggressive waves.

I was on the seadoo, my hand stretched out behind me, reaching for him when he fell backward. The seadoo was already revving its engine, ready to head toward a waiting yacht, 100 metres from the beach.

What was I doing on a seadoo? Why were we headed toward a yacht?

Let me tell you what happened. But first, some background so you can understand where I’m coming from…

I am not an outdoorsy girl.

I have always enjoyed being outdoors, exercising outdoors, and have even been an enthusiastic participant of such outdoor adventures like dragon boating, white water rafting (In Ottawa!), cave exploring, kayaking (In Hong Kong), and climbing up rather large mountains (all over China).

But I am not an outdoorsy girl. Really, I’m not.

It’s not originally me. I’m from Toronto.  I live in the city. I used to spend my weekends at the mall. Sometimes, I’d go on road trips to LOOK at the outdoors. The trees and rolling Ontario hills were enjoyed from the comfort of my car. “Beautiful scenery! Lovely leaves! Oh, let’s roll down the window to get a closer look…”

But something changed when I lived in Beijing for a year. The people I hung out with loved doing crazy things outdoors. We hired drivers who brought us out to the rugged ruins of the Great Wall, hours away from the touristy hawkers where we crawled on our hands and knees over the wall’s rubble. We ventured into the Longjing Gorge and took great leaps of faith… and we climbed up as many mountains as we could (I was able to climb Huangshan, Changbaishan and Taishan) and down gorges (namely, the Tiger Leaping Gorge in Yunnan) as far as our legs would carry us.

But let’s be honest here. I haven’t REALLY changed – have I? Because a large part of the motivation to do such things came from the people I surrounded myself with. When in Rome… The experience of overcoming such challenges, of pushing my physical limits, was exhilirating when I did it with the group. Alone, I fear I lose my outdoorsy spirit and I retreat to the malls.

In Hong Kong, the boyfriend has worked on getting me back outside, with nature, in the sun and heat, on the mountains and on the beaches, next to the trees and the wildlife. It has not been an easy transition.

Kayaking in Sai Kung with friends

Hong Kong is one of those places where there’s a crazy metropolis, buzzing with life at all hours of the day. You can get anything in this city – everything Chinese and everything Western – and you can also hop on a bus or a boat and in about an hour, you’ll find yourself facing some of the most stunning views of the South China Sea – blue-green water, lush mountains, sun and sand. In a word, it is truly awesome. And, I’ve enjoyed my time in the Hong Kong wilderness these months. I’ve hiked on the outlying islands, Lamma and Cheung Chau, and I’ve spent some time in Sai Kung, a 12,600 hectare country park north-east of Hong Kong Island.

This weekend, a friend joined the boyfriend and I for another hike. This time we set off for the deserted beaches deep in Sai Kung country park – and that, my friends, is the scene of the crime, the place where our Canon DSLR fell into the water.

We started our hike a little late in the day – which isn’t a good idea, considering we were headed deep into the park. But we wanted to sleep in and we wanted to have our dim sum breakfast. Aiya.

For those of you interested in taking this hike, here are the details…

Get to Diamond Hill subway station — take bus 92 to Sai Kung  — At Sai Kung, take bus 94 into the park to Wong Shek Pier.

At the Pier, you can either hire a speed boat ($120  HKD one way) or wait for the slow ferry that will take another 45 minutes at least to get you to Chek Keng.

From Chek Keng, you’re supposed to follow the Maclehose Trail eastwards. Here’s where things went wrong for us. We reached the Maclehose Trail in good time, but the trail is a circuit. We could go west or east (left or right) and we asked some hikers on the trail which way to Tailongwan (Big Wave Bay). We were told to go left. This, I believe, was bad intel.

The path is supposed to climb the side of a valley, to a ridge where you can rest, and look out across the natural amphitheatre centred on Tai Long Wan. The path then winds down, to the hamlet of Tai Long, after which it’s an easy walk to Ham Tin, beside the southernmost beach.

Instead, we climbed up a mountain for about an hour, sweating and swiping at mosquitos. We couldn’t see the beach, but we pressed on. Hikers coming towards us assured us the beach was up ahead.

We finally began our descent and after more than 30 minutes, we reached a village! We were greeted by a beautiful blue wave painted on the wall of a village building. “Surf’s Up!” it read. But when we turned the corner, this is what we saw:

The village was deserted. The houses were boarded up. Stores were shuttered. Where was the beach?

We saw two paths. One went into the woods with no clear foot path. The other, blocked by 5 dogs sleeping lazily in the heat. If there are dogs, then there are people, right? We called out to see if anyone was around. No response. We took a few slow steps towards the dogs, inching forward. Then, we heard a low belly growwwwwl and two dogs suddenly stood up, ears perky, those little faces staring us down. (I would put a picture here, but there was no time to take one, you see.)

Okay, we thought, back away slowly. Slowly. Slowly. Anddddd TURN AND RUN.

We had no choice but to run the other way, into the woods. There was no path, but we couldn’t turn back and head the way we came. It was getting late and we would be hiking the mountain in the dark. We tried thinking where we had gone astray – we didn’t miss a turn, there was only one route here. We didn’t realize that we had turned west instead of east at the very beginning of the trail. Besides, it was too late to go back even if we did realize it at the time. So we went further and further into the woods, balancing over swampy grounds on makeshift bridges, navigating over rocks and massive,  protruding tree roots. I let my emotions and fears get the best of me and inside, I was freaking out.

We could hear the buzz of speedboats in the distance, but we continued on for an hour through the woods, and still no beach.

“I’m scared,” I said out loud, but scared didn’t help. Finally, finally, FINALLY after about a total of 3 hours hiking we emerged and saw this:

We were on Tai Long Dong Wan, one of Sai Kung’s deserted beaches, one of the beaches we had planned to visit that day, but not via the route we took. The boys were enjoying the views, but I could not. All I could think about was how we were going to go home. I didn’t see any speedboats — just yachts. What to do?

Get on a yacht, of course.

I saw a man and his children playing on the beach. I approached him. “We were chased by dogs,” I said. “We’ve been hiking for hours. Do you know if there are speed boats here we can rent?” He said he didn’t see any speed boats….there was a bit of a silence…. and then:

“You can get a ride back to the pier with us.”

That is how I ended up on the sea doo. That is why the boyfriend was also trying to get on, when a strong wave knocked him back. That is how water got into the backpack and into the camera body and our lens (a Canon EF-S 17-55mm f/2.8 IS USM).

The really good news is that the camera still turns on, but the sensor cleaner is on a continuous cycle in an attempt to clean the body. Even when we turn the camera off, there is a constant click click click. There’s also water droplets visible in the lens.

Canon will call this week with a quote on repairs. Let’s hope the damage won’t break the bank.

Lessons learned?

1) Carry a compass. Or, get a handy GPS for hiking trails. Anyone have one of those?

2) Start earlier in the day.

3) Get a water proof bag for the DSLR, even if it’s in the backpack. Any suggestions on where and what kind of bag to get?

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