More of Green Island

A lighthouse at the NW corner of the island.

Although we spent most of our time on or below the surface we did have some down-time.  Since you shouldn’t dive within 24 hours of flying we had a full day to scoot and walk around the island and its deserted beaches.

Green is located off the south eastern coast of Taiwan.  To get there we flew Uni Air from Songshan airport to Taitung, about 40 minutes, and then transferred for the short hop over from Taitung.

A completely deserted beach on the NE coast of the island.

The ‘Little Great Wall’ is a stone stairway that extends 300 meters out to the pavilions in the background.

My dive guide and friend.  (Thanks for the great dive trip!)

There are a couple prisons on the island (which isolated island doesn’t have a prison).  I think this one may have been the military prison.

An abandoned aboriginal home on the north coast.

Who needs an SUV in these tough times when a 100cc scooter will do?

We may have seen this guy swimming around just a few hours before this.

Getting ready to leave Green Island for the hustle and bustle of 6,000,000 people in Taipei.

Shhhhhh….let’s keep this place a secret

Thanks to its remoteness it probably will remain off the beaten path except for a few thousand weekend visitors from around Taiwan.  With a permanent population of around 3000 it’s a relatively uninhabited small island.  It takes about 40 minutes on a scooter to make it around the 18 km coastal loop on Green Island.

Hi.

Above the surface you’ll find unspoiled beaches and below the surface you’ll find some of the best diving around.  For visibility and sea life it surpassed anything that I could have imagined.  It was easily the best diving I’ve done, in my very limited diving career, including the Red Sea, Sulu Sea and Philippine Sea.  Visibility, even on an overcast windy day was between 25m-30m and water temperatures hovered around 27c (80F).  Not bad for the end of November.

The trip starts with a 10 minute flight from Taitung to Green Island.  Your other choice is a ferry that runs between Taitung and Green.  I’ve heard that the ferry is notorious for making people sea-sick and their idea for dealing with this is by passing out CLEAR vomit bags as you board the ferry.  No thanks.

Don’t mind the smoke filling up the lower half of the cabin.

Possibly the smallest baggage claim area in the world.

There’s a huge amount of soft and hard coral surrounding the island.

Unfortunately the seas aren’t litter-free.

A small gobi fish taking a break.

Your typical aquarium scene diving around Green Island.  I believe this was Independent Rock.

Independence Day Dive

Happy Fourth of July to everyone at home!

The Taiwan dive season generally goes from mid-May through September. For the brave and well insulated you can extend those times. Today we headed over to the northeast coast and found some interesting little creatures to share the water with. The water temperature was comfortable yesterday (28C/82F), but today we managed to find some cool spots (24C/75F). The coolest spot was around 24 meters; the water warmed up once we were around 15 meters. Some parts of the surface were a bathtub-like (31C/88F) ahhhhhhhhhh.

Here’s a little of what we saw.

Large nudibranch. They are a photographer’s friend, because they come in huge variety of colors and are slow enough to photograph.

Another large nudibranch posing for a photo.

UNO! Laura loves these little plastic Uno H2O cards and bought them on her last trip to the States and assured me that I would like them too. I was skeptical and kept making fun of her and these ‘really cool’ playing cards until she showed them to me. They really are perfect for vacations when you’re sitting around the pool. So to prove that I like them also, I brought one on our dive today. You’ll have to pardon that rude little fish that decided to swim right in front of my regulator as my friend took the photo. Sneaky little thing.

This three spot domino damselfish is only about 2cm long.

These little underwater scooters were a lot of fun. They make swimming in current much easier.

If you are ever interested in diving in Taiwan I would HIGHLY suggest contacting McGill at Taiwan Dive Buddy. McGill has become a good friend and is an excellent dive instuctor and guide.

*Like all the other diving posts, if you see that I’ve named an animal incorrectly please let me know so that I can change it.* Thanks, Steve

Lankayan Experience – Part II Under the Sulu Sea

I was a very bad husband and missed our anniversary and all I could do was come up with this message.

Lankayan sits in the southeast corner of the Sulu Sea. The waters just off the beach are probably in the upper 80’s.  Even at 65 feet below the surface the water is still 84 degrees. Visibility was sometimes poor at the surface, but often cleared up around 50 feet.

A sleeping white tipped reef shark and a blue spotted stingray. All the shark sightings were fun. We saw nurse sharks, black tipped reef sharks, white tipped reef sharks and leopard sharks.

Dives were always within 10 minutes of the island via a quick speedboat ride. The resort offered three boat dives each day and unlimited shore dives. Although it was tempting to make dives around the house reef, I was almost always too tired to make the additional dives with one exception. We made one sunset/night dive that was highlighted by the sighting of a seahorse. Night dives are fun because you often go down at dusk and then surface under a starlit sky. The brightness of the stars always seem exaggerated because your eyes have adjusted to the darkness of the water.

Some type of sea worm?

The poisonous lion fish

The star of the night dive, a lone seahorse. The story behind this seahorse is that I’ve always wanted to see one and I told everyone on the dive that if they could show me a seahorse I’d buy ice cream for everyone in the group. It was worth it.

Getting ready for another dive

Another type of seaworm?

Ghost pipefish

McGill having another good dive

One of hundreds of types of coral

A couple of clownfish hanging out at home

Bill surfacing after a night dive. It’s pretty dark out there.

I should say that I’m terrible at identifying sea life so if you notice any incorrect identification please let me know.

Borneo and Lankayan Preview

Here’s a quick preview. I’m just now back at work (sad face) and catching up with email and getting back up to normal speed. I’ll post a full write-up soon.