CRUISING SAI KUNG

What’s in a name?

Guy Nowell finds out why certain bays, beaches and islands are so called

We were sailing past Scrambled Egg Island (and taking care to stay clear of Scrambled Egg Island reef), when I wondered where some of the more interesting names on the chart came from. Most Hong Kong places have two names – English and Cantonese. Some of them translate more or less, but many of them don’t. Scrambled Egg is only marked on the chart as Fu Wong Chau, and the only place we have seen it named as such is in Richard Hownam-Meek’s excellent Afloat in Hong Kong (1978). Who knows where that came from – maybe someone bumped the reef whilst cooking a scrambled egg breakfast?

And then there’s Green Egg Island (right), which is not named at all on the charts, and only acquired an identity very recently. A circular patch of green in the middle of a low, rocky, palecoloured islet, which looks like a green egg from above. Or was it something to do with Dr Seuss’s Green Eggs and Ham?

A number of the Hong Kong names came from British warships. Plover Cove was named after a Royal Navy survey ship, HMS Plover. HMS Starling gave her name to Starling Inlet, but the rather unattractive-sounding Repulse Bay most certainly did not come from HMS Repulse. There never has been a ship of that name stationed in Hong Kong, so we’ll leave that open for speculation. HMS Sulphur was the vessel commanded by Edward Belcher, who landed on Hong Kong on 26 January, 1841, and claimed the island in the name of Her 30 | SAI KUNG

Majesty Queen Victoria. The shore line has been reclaimed since then (surprise!), and what was once called Possession Point is now 400m inland. The Sulphur Channel is the passage between Green Island and the northwest tip of Hong Kong Island.

Junk Bay is interesting because it gets its name through a misunderstanding, as explained to me by a friendly taxi driver. Tseung Kwan O has nothing to do with junks, he said. The bay was named for a famous general called Kwan. The untutored Western ear hears “tseung” as something like “cheung” or “jun”, and then you add the “k” from Kwan, and you get “jun-k”. The rest of the “Kwan” is “wan” and everyone knows that means a bay, so…

There are two Turtle Coves in Hong Kong. One is on the west side of Redhill Peninsula, and the other – the one you need to know about - is on Lamma and is otherwise known as Sham Wan. This is the only place in Hong Kong (and one of the few sites in South China Sea) where Green Turtles nest from time to time. The site is therefore very important to the breeding and survival of this endangered species, both locally and regionally. It has been a restricted area since 1999, but since this year the whole bay (not just the beach) is off limits from April 1 to October 1.

Hebe Haven (above) is possibly the most picturesque anchorage in Hong Kong. It is home to more than 1,000 pleasure vessel moorings, two yacht clubs and two marinas. In Cantonese, it’s called Pak Sha Wan (White Sand Bay). HMS Hebe participated in a survey of the China coast between 1842 and 1845 but there is no hard evidence to connect the ship’s name with the bay. Hebe was the Greek Goddess of Youth and also Cupbearer to Gods, so would probably have got on just fine at a yacht club.

Guy Nowell is founder of Asia Yacht Press and a Sai Kung resident since 1988 (yup, that’s 33 years, Deirdre). A new edition of his fabulous and authoritative coffee table book Cruising Hong Kong is available at

asiayachtpress.com/cruising-hongkong