Looking for Pink Dolphins in Hong Kong

‘Disneyland and dolphin watching,’ replied my youngest son, twelve-year old ‘Cellulite is Cool’ Michael, when asked where he would like to go in Hong Kong. I was going to Hong Kong for a conference in November 2005 and decided to bring Michael along. He had recently completed his primary school leaving examinations and skipping part of the after-exam programme in school would not appear to be a big loss. Before leaving for Hong Kong, I borrowed several travel guidebooks from the library for us to read and shortlist the things we wanted to do in Hong Kong.

Needless to say, included in my list were eating expeditions to a number of recommended Hong Kong restaurants. We did eventually enjoy a large number of good meals in Hong Kong, including dinners at the recently renovated floating restaurant, Jumbo Kingdom, in Aberdeen Harbour and the multiple award-winning Yung Kee Restaurant (named by Fortune magazine as one of the 15 best restaurants in the world in 1968). However, by far our best meal was a lunch at the Lamma Mandarin Seafood Restaurant in Sok Kwu Wan on Lamma Island. Michael had initially questioned why I wanted to go to an island that had seafood restaurants as its main attraction but eventually wanted to stay on for dinner too. In fact, he enjoyed the restaurant’s black pepper prawns so much that he ate the shells of the prawns he had peeled immediately after he had eaten the prawns. A sure sign that we had chosen the right restaurant was a photo of Hong Kong mega star Alan Tam (whose photo also graced one wall of my favourite bak kut teh restaurant in Singapore) with the staff or friends there.

Hong Kong Disneyland was fun but with more than 11,000 visitors on an average day, it was also very crowded. One thing that tickled us was the Disney characters speaking and singing in Cantonese, and it was a real scream hearing Mickey and company say ‘Dóh jé, dóh jé’ or ‘M sáih’. What Michael and I enjoyed most there was helping Buzz Lightyear save the universe from the evil Emperor Zurg. We returned repeatedly and almost hourly to the Buzz Lightyear Astro Blasters attraction in Tomorrowland while we were there. We left that night after a wonderful fireworks display that was choreographed to popular Disney music. However, the truly magical moments for us in Hong Kong came later.

Dolphin watching appeared in a few of the guidebooks that I borrowed. It was mentioned that the local hangout of the pink dolphins was near the airport at Chek Lap Kok on Lantau island and that Hong Kong Dolphin Watch Ltd, a local tour operator, would take care of all the trip details. They have a policy of ‘responsible ecotourism’, reducing any disturbance to the dolphins and donating money to WWF Hong Kong and Friends of the Earth (HK). It was not cheap and at HK$320 per person, costs more than the Disneyland weekday fee of HK$295 per person we had paid. Furthermore, there was no guarantee of any dolphin sighting although they report seeing dolphins in 97% of their trips. Their offer of another trip free of charge was no use to us since we were going to leave the following day. In fact, the reality was that there might not even be a trip at all. Condition five of the ticket provided that if ‘a typhoon signal 3 or higher, or a black thunderstorm warning, is hoisted within two hours before the scheduled departure time, or if not enough passengers have booked for a particular trip, the trip would be cancelled’. Nonetheless, hoping that things would all work out in the end, we booked ourselves on a dolphin watching trip for Wednesday 23 November 2005, the first trip that week and the only trip available to us before returning home. Ever since watching Flipper the dolphin in the 1960s television series of the same name, I have had a soft spot for dolphins. However, apart from sighting a distant grey dolphin briefly in Singapore waters during a scuba diving trip in the early 1980s, I have not seen any dolphins. I was therefore looking forward to the trip as much as Michael.

Dolphins are said to have been around the earth for tens of millions of years and are the descendants of land mammals. Traces of their origins apparently lie in the fact that they must breathe air from the surface (at least once every few minutes on the average) and in the vertical movement of their spines which are characteristic of land mammals rather than of fish. They are intelligent and compassionate creatures and seem to have a special bond with human beings. In fact, there are many accounts of ancient mariners who were guided or carried to safety or saved by dolphins. They are so capable that both the US and the Russian armed forces have trained dolphins for military purposes although some reports indicate that many die from the stress of military training or duties. However, make no mistake about it, they are predators; there are also reports of people being bumped, rammed and injured by dolphins. And according to Tim Cahill, the permanent smile on the faces of some species of dolphins is purely anatomical and no more indicative of the animal’s state of mind than are the tusks on an elephant.

We were picked up from the lobby of Mandarin Oriental Hotel together with several others at 8.30am in the morning. According to our guide, Shiu, there were 20 persons going on the trip that day. They comprised Japanese (about half), Caucasians, a local couple and us two Singaporeans. I later learnt that not many Singaporeans join the dolphin watching trips, which is a pity.

The coach took us through the 2.2-kilometre Tsing Ma Bridge, the world’s longest road-and-rail suspension bridge, to Lantau Island and dropped us off at Tung Chung New Pier on the northern part of the island. Along the way, in fluent Japanese and English, Shiu gave us some background to the pink dolphins of Hong Kong.

The pink dolphin (also known as the Chinese white dolphin) found in Hong Kong is really the Indo-Pacific humpback dolphin or Sousa chinensis. It can grow up to three metres long and is usually found around the coast of South Africa, southern China and northern Australia. Those that are found in southern China and the waters around Hong Kong are mostly pink (bubble gum pink to be more precise) whereas those elsewhere are more greyish in colour. Apparently, they are born grey but fade to light grey and then white, leaving just some grey spots on their body and the pink colour is caused by ‘blushing’ or the effect of blood going to the outer layers of the skin to regulate body temperature. According to the Whale and Dolphin Conservation Society, Indo-Pacific humpback dolphins vary in colour from yellow to pink to almost white to medium grey and they are ‘slow swimming animals that avoid boats if possible’.

Shiu also told us that pink dolphins have been observed helping a new mother dolphin with her infant and also helping injured dolphins. The infant dolphins feed on their mothers’ milk and older dolphins feed on fish. Unfortunately, because of over fishing, pollution and the destruction of their habitat, pink dolphins only have a life span of about 20 years, half the life span of dolphins elsewhere. Many of them also get hit by ships and boats on the busy sea lanes around Hong Kong and some of them drown as a result of being caught in fishing nets. In fact, there was a prominent notice on the homepage of Hong Kong Dolphin Watch Ltd to say that an injured dolphin was sighted on various recent dates and to ‘HELP the poor injured dolphin!!!’ According to Shiu, there are less than a thousand pink dolphins remaining, making them an endangered species.

Captain Chan and his wife picked us from Tung Chung New Pier in a luxury cabin cruiser and took us out to sea in a northerly direction. After about half an hour, he slowed down the cruiser and we began earnestly to look out for dolphins. Shiu was right when she told us that Captain Chan was likely to be the first to spot them.

‘Eleven o’clock!’ he shouted and we saw two dolphins’ dorsal fins just above the water level about 100 metres in front of us. ‘Dad, Dad, over there, over there!’ shouted Michael, pointing excitedly towards the other side of the boat. In fact, we saw a few pods of dolphins at various spots around the boat at the same time. We were in dolphin territory. I started to take photos of the dolphins and Michael began to ask for my camera so that he could take photos of them as well. Everyone else with cameras also took them out and started shooting.   

Shouts of ‘Over there!’ and ‘There! There! There!’ in both English and Japanese could be heard around the cruiser. Everyone was smiling and chattering excitedly. After cruising slowly towards some dolphins, we realised that they were allowing us to get closer. Some of them were actually swimming towards us and playfully diving, breaching (ie jumping partially out of the water and falling back with a splash) and sky hopping (ie poking its head out of the water) near our cruiser. A couple of them appeared to be circling the cruiser and one swam under it. One even leaped out of the water in a long arc very near the side of the cruiser. There must have been at least a dozen of them in all and we could even hear the heavy breaths of the dolphins that were near us. This went on for close to half an hour and Michael and I took more than a hundred photos in all. Luckily, I had changed to a fresh camera battery just before the dolphin trip.

Then, almost suddenly, the dolphins swam farther and farther away and we continued to cruise around but never repeated that magical half hour when some of the dolphins came as close as eight feet from our cruiser. Before long, it was time to return. Everyone, including Captain Chan and his wife, had the look that said we had witnessed something special.

Getting to see the pink dolphins close up was truly a magical and unforgettable experience. On the way back, Shiu told us that it was not common for so many pink dolphins to come close to a boat and we were deeply grateful for that privileged encounter. Michael ranked it as the highlight of our Hong Kong trip and I agree.

Richard Tan Ming Kirk

Shook Lin & Bok

©Richard Tan Ming Kirk