For the first time, veteran sailor Thomas Wong Kam-chuen and his partners set sail from Hong Kong on their 46-foot yacht on a two-day trip earlier this month to a holiday island in Zhuhai, testing the waters for more leisure travel to mainland China.
After a five-hour voyage from the Causeway Bay typhoon shelter on a sunny weekend, they anchored their Danish-built yacht, DBX2, at Guishan Island, went ashore for a seafood lunch with beer and stayed overnight.
“Food is really economical. We had 11 people, and a seafood meal was only HK$112 [US$14] per person. If you eat seafood in Hong Kong, it is at least HK$600 to HK$700 a person,” said the 79-year-old structural engineer, who has 52 years of sailing experience.
DBX2 joined nine other vessels in a flotilla organised by the Royal Hong Kong Yacht Club in collaboration with the Zhuhai Yacht Association, with the early batch of sailors navigating Greater Bay Area waters under a new individual yacht travel scheme.
The trip was made possible after Beijing approved the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macau individual yacht scheme in June, allowing Hong Kong owners to sail their vessels to designated ports as part of a broader “yacht economy” strategy for the Greater Bay Area.
The bay area is a central government initiative to link Hong Kong, Macau and nine cities in neighbouring Guangdong province into an integrated economic powerhouse.