Ryan Ho Kilpatrick

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Hong Kong’s Outcast Islands

  • by Ryan Ho Kilpatrick
  • Posted on August 21, 2018
  • Islands

Hong Kong’s Disappearing Islands

  • by Ryan Ho Kilpatrick
  • Posted on August 1, 2018
  • Islands

On the Far Edge of Hong Kong, Unexpectedly Thriving Coral Reefs

  • by Ryan Ho Kilpatrick
  • Posted on July 4, 2018July 4, 2018
  • Eurasians

No Mixed Blood, No Mixed Bones

  • by Ryan Ho Kilpatrick
  • Posted on June 8, 2018
  • Marine conservation

There’s Something Fishy About China’s Salmon

  • by Ryan Ho Kilpatrick
  • Posted on May 30, 2018June 8, 2018
  • Marine conservation

Pressure Mounts to Take Blue Shark Off the Menu

  • by Ryan Ho Kilpatrick
  • Posted on May 24, 2018May 24, 2018
  • Maritime history

Hong Kong’s Lighthouses and Their Eurasian Sentries

  • by Ryan Ho Kilpatrick
  • Posted on April 18, 2018May 1, 2018

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Lit in 1901, Cape Byron Light stands at the easternmost tip of the Australian mainland. The country’s most powerful lighthouse, by night its light sweeps 27 nautical miles across Byron Bay, burning with the intensity of 2.2 million candles. If it could keep shining boundlessly over the inky ocean waters, though, it would illuminate some 13,000 kilometres of unbroken fetch before meeting the rising sun on the opposite shores of the Pacific, a few hardy candelas making landfall upon the Chilean coast. Also pictured: the Catholic Cathedral of St Stephen in Brisbane, a sloping street of traditional Queenslander homes in suburban Bulimba, the River of Light show on the Brisbane River, and dawn on the Great Barrier Reef.
The sun sinks into the seas off the Great Barrier Reef on one of my last days in Australia. In my short time here I’ve dived for the first time with grey nurse, reef and wobbegong sharks, giant Queensland grouper, bumphead parrotfish and marble, bull and eagle rays. I did my first wreck penetration dive and liveaboard and shared the water with breaching humpback whales and great pods of dolphins. Back on dry land I took my first furtive steps into a continent I’d barely thought of before but now can’t get off my mind. Can’t wait to see you again, Great Southern Land.
Half in the sky above Okanagan Lake, a very BC chapel—the Saint Elizabeth Seton House of Prayer. For the first time since I arrived here, the heavens finally opened and the still air started breathing again, wind and rain driving away the smoke from nearby forest fires that had brought air quality and visibility levels redolent of Beijing. At last, a glimpse of the Okanagan as God (or at least the Catholic Diocese) intended!
And the sheen of their spears was like stars on the sea.
South of Hong Kong Island, guarding the boundary between leisurely Outer Deep Water Bay and the franetic East Lamma shipping lanes, is an island of many names. In Edward Belcher’s inaugural 1841 chart of Hong Kong, the island is labelled “Maskong”: presumably a scrambled transliteration of 媽宮 “ma gung”—“Palace of the Mother”—a name found elsewhere in maritime China to denote the location of a temple to the sea goddess Matsu. But there is no evidence to suggest there was ever a temple on Round Island and Belcher was known to muddle Chinese place names. In all likelihood it was the name of a nearby settlement on shore. Nonetheless, it is a error repeated in subsequent maps of 1896, 1904, 1913, 1915, 1922, and as recently as 1928. Lt Collinson’s superior 1846 ordinance map rechristened the landmass Coin Island—a fanciful translation of it’s correct Chinese name 銀州 “ngan jau”, or “Silver Island.” Since time immemorial, Hongkongers have indulged in a singular fantasy of seeing their isles as imperial ingots of silver: there are close to half a dozen “Silver Islands”s scattered throughout the territory. To avoid confusion, the Chinese often defers to a literal translation what has been the island’s official English name since at least the turn of the century—圓州 “yuhn jau” (Round Island). Unfortunately, however, “Round Island” is about as commonplace a toponym in the English-speaking world as “Silver Island” is in the Cantonese. If all this weren’t confusing enough, yet another name has been thrown into the mix lately. Young sailors who set out from the yacht clubs at Middle Island to visit the island’s sandy, isolated beach have taken to calling it Shoe Island, imagining it’s contours more redolent of a loafer than a piece of historical currency. I’m partial to Collinson’s vaguely piratical Coin Island personally, but could be persuaded to compromise—Silver Shoe Island, anyone?
In the darkening twilight I saw a lone star hover, gem-like above the bay.

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