Junk trip
After several years in Hong Kong without going on one of these quintessential posh kids' outings, I seem to be doing a lot of junk trips, barbecues and - most recently -barbecues on junk trips.

This latest one was a birthday excursion for a fellow Spurs fan, and the passengers were not so posh as all that, but the classic junk trip content was all there: drinking, swimming and a boat. Looks like the Pimms-and-shouting brigade were onto something.

After a pootle round to Tai Tam where the lilos kept escaping out to sea, and an impressive cake (Spurs shirt, new Autonomy logo and everything), the boat moored in South Harbour for a while.
Somewhere in the preceding couple of hours all six litres of the vodka-heavy punch had been drunk. A large portion of it seemed to have gone into the boat-owner's wife, who had been sitting next to the jug unattended. She was now falling over things and yelling at the husband, and sure enough a row broke out.

This was sufficiently awkward that everyone decided to jump overboard. Some cans were chucked over the side as supplies. Note for the future - Sunkist doesn't float. Neither does lager, but it sinks slow enough for you to catch it.

We decided to swim for the beach. Eventually, this included my other half CK, who is not a keen swimmer and particularly dislikes swimming in the sea (can't touch the bottom), but she was persuaded when she realised that the last other non-combatant, our mate D, was not sticking around.
So, lagging behind somewhat after the lengthy 'come to the beach' and preparation session, I set off towing CK, who had opted to lie across the pink lilo for safety.
We soon caught up with D, himself not a strong swimmer, who had been left with minimal flotation, some kind of bendy foam rubber staff.
We joined forces - I kicking froglegged on my back and pulling the lilo, the other two hanging on at the back.

We caught up with the peloton at the shark net about 200m from the boat, where I gained the birthday boy's aid in dragging my human cargo to shore, probably another good 200m.

And then we played beach football with a half-deflated volleyball. This may have been the first time I've scored twice in a match in any kind of footballing competition, so I was quite pleased with that.

The return journey was slower, on account of the beer on the beach and the running around kicking a ball, but all was peaceful by the time we got back on board.
The moral of the story? If you've left your house keys and wallet on the boat, you can swim a lot further than you think.