Jun 19 - The kind people at the tourist information center in the Taitung Train Station help us reserve ferry rides to and from Green Island. I cannot do this online, as the sites are in Chinese and require a specific type of payment card I don’t have. We wait for the bus to go to the ferry terminal (out of town to the north), but it doesn’t arrive and we arrange a taxi instead. Just as the taxi is pulling out, the correct bus arrives. The 10-minute ride in the taxi is about US$10, and is the first such ride we’ve taken in Taiwan.
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The ferry building is new and it is easy to get our tickets (reserved by phone, payable only with cash). It is a bright and sunny day like yesterday, but the ride is a bit rough, with large swells for much of the 50-minute ride across the East China Sea. We don’t see any foreigners on board, and the predominant demographic is 20 to 30-year-olds.
Off at Nanliao Fishing Harbor. Here, our hotel arranged for us to meet the owner at a scooter rental business. We go there, but the option to rent scooters does not work for Janet. At any rate, my International Driving License is expired, and I’m not sure if I can use my US one anyway. The owner offers us a ride to the hotel, which is about 10 minutes away (driving). It is hot here, roasting actually. The island has vegetation but it is all bushes and grasses. In theory, we could rent a car, but it would be almost US $90 for the day.
We are early for check-in. Just a note, Taiwan has brought us back into the annoying late check-in and early check-out we got earlier in the trip. Placing a five-hour gap between the two makes logistics very difficult. They let us into the room anyway, as we are already drenched with sweat after carrying the packs around.
Unfortunately, the island is not at all designed for walking around. It is just a single road going around with concrete buildings lining it and no place to walk at length along the beach. The only feasible way to see things here is to rent scooters.
We do luck out, in that our hotel (located in the village of Ludao) is close to a few restaurants, and an 11-minute walk to the nearest good snorkeling site as well as the famous Lyudao Lighthouse. Across the street, we convince the dive shop to let us rent masks (again, they oddly are not set up for this, we are told many dive shops won’t rent masks unless we are going full in with a dive trip).
Armed with our bathing gear and masks (no fins), we set off in the early afternoon heat to the Chaikou Snorkeling Area to the east. The entry is easy to find, a long cement path leading over a flat exposed reef to the wave break. There are innumerable tide pools here, some languishing disconnected from circulating water and very hot. There is plenty of interesting sea life in the pools, including snowflake morays and hairy crabs.
I am hesitant to walk into the ocean here, as it is solid reef but very shallow. However, the coral is very compact with almost nothing sharp protruding upwards. We snorkel out and reach an area with 5-10 meters of depth. Here the corals are more developed.
There is geomorphology here that leaves me wondering about the history of this coast. There are deeply incised canyons with rounded boulders at the base, some more than 5 meters down. It gives all the appearance of a submerged shoreline. Either that or this coast gets a regular beating from typhoons (this would also explain the compact corals near the surface). I can find nothing online that discusses what I am looking at.
Within ten minutes I see two banded sea kraits, one close to a meter long. Janet sees some as well, so they must be common here. One of them comes up from the depths to take a breath while I idle nearby. Plenty of good fish here, making up for the relatively uninteresting corals.
Also see a group of calamari, spiny pufferfish, and a green sea turtle. Overall I am impressed with what this place has to offer for unusual snorkeling, I have never seen a place quite like it.
Surfacing, I see that a number of groups of divers have arrived. They file down along the concrete path and float around just offshore. They stay so close together that most of the reef remains devoid of people. There are even a few other snorkelers, armed with lifesavers, bobbing up and down in the surf and stepping on plenty of coral.
Spend a lot of time here, either walking around to tide pools or snorkeling. Make our way back to the hotel. On the way pass a pen with deer in it.
