Diving in Taiwan

Please register or login

Welcome to ScubaBoard, the world's largest scuba diving community. Registration is not required to read the forums, but we encourage you to join. Joining has its benefits and enables you to participate in the discussions.

Benefits of registering include

  • Ability to post and comment on topics and discussions.
  • A Free photo gallery to share your dive photos with the world.
  • You can make this box go away

Joining is quick and easy. Log in or Register now!

tom_kkh

Registered
Messages
36
Reaction score
0
Location
singapore
# of dives
25 - 49
Will be spending 10 days in Taiwan.

Would appreciate sugggestion on some dive sites available during November.

Will be great if any kind soul can shed some lights on the sites and maybe some recommended dive operators.

Thanks guys:lotsalove:
 
If you are in the south, do give Kenting a try. Or you also look at the offshore islands, green island, xiao liu chiu.

Not too sure abt the north thou.
I'll be going in Nov too, planning to dive in 17 18 Nov at kenting. Got plenty of coral there.
 
The dive shop I use near Keelung (long Dong Bay) closes towards the end of October. As a newbie diver I think I'll be making a LOT of weekend trips down south (luckily we have the High Speed Train now).
 
Posted via Mobile Device
What is the condition of keelung dives? Vis? Is it closing because of the cold? Any sites to recommend down south?
 
If in Nov,it's better to dive in South side of Taiwan. Perhaps the temp in North is a bit chilled.....

A lot of dive shops all over there. Yet, I am afraid not all of them can speak fluent English..... Can you speak Mandarin?
 
I'm a newbie diver, so don't know anything much yet about dive sites up north, or anywhere else in Taiwan. I am going diving next weekend at artificial reef in Long Dong Bay.

I don't speak Chinese either, but I use PioneerDiver (pioneerdiver.net). I did my OW there, and am doing my AOW this weekend.

The owner, Ken Hou (MSDT 46039) , spent a long time in Australia, so he speaks great English.

They have an expat instructor (Joseph Merrel - OWSI 489829) who is bilingual (English and Chinese).

Their Divemaster Katia is a local, but she speaks fantastic English. Katia will go leave soon to get her instructor certification.

A few of the other local instructors and dive masters speak acceptable English.



As for down south, I only have contact details, have not used them yet.

From what I have heard the BEST places for diving is Green Island: http://www.greenislanddiving.com/ . One thing about Green Island is that you can dive with schooling hammerhead sharks (I'm not ready for that, yet)!

There is also an outfit in Kenting, run by an expat: http://www.shellbackdiver.com/

Another operator is based in Kaohsiung: http://www.taiwandive.com/
 
Last edited:
Sounds great !
Anyone keen to join me in Nov at kenting?
Say 2 shore and 2 boat dives?
 
In Kenting (southern Taiwan), if you want a native English speaker to guide you and take care of getting you equipped, etc., you should arrange things in advance by contacting either the guy at www.taiwandive.com - Kenting - Green Island - Orchid Island - XiaoLiuChiuor the guy at Shellback Diver There's at least one other native English speaker in Kenting who's an instructor but I don't have his contact info. You can find his card (his name's John something) at the Surf Shack in Hengchun town in Kenting if you don't want to arrange things in advance, or if the other two guys' schedules are already booked for when you'll want to go diving.

If you're with someone who can speak Chinese, you can take care of your own needs through Dive New World, in central Kenting town, http://tw.myblog.yahoo.com/dive_new_world or dive_new_world@yahoo.com.tw or through Long Jing Dive Resort, http://www.longjing.com.tw or boss@longjing.com.tw Both Long Jing and New World have cheap dive hostels (around NT$400 per night per diver per bed) if your budget is a concern. They'll both rent you all of the requisite kit, and a vehicle to get to the shore diving sites, for a fair price. There's yet another decent dive center/hostel a few hundred meters behind the Houbihu harbor but I don't have their contact info and I can't recall the name.

Nice shore diving sites in Kenting include the Flower Garden (sorry, I don't know the Chinese name), the Pillbox (Hejie), and a handful of others (e.g., the power plant outlet (Qu Shui Kou) is OK). Some sites which lack good coral reefs sometimes offer other interesting and less common marine life (e.g., I've seen frogfish at Shan Hai -- find the submgered line near the mouth of the little harbor and follow it out to the bommies). There's a decent dive site map on the wall at Long Jing, although it's not really detailed enough for you to easily find all the entry/exit points by yourself if you've never dived those sites before. Andy's website (taiwandive) also has descriptions of a lot of the Kenting dive sites but no map to get you to them on your own. In any event, although a lot of these sites offer fairly easy diving, getting in and out over the rocks in crashing surf can be dangerous, so my $0.02 is that you'd do best by diving these sites with a guide who knows them, rather than just trying your luck on your own.

After you dive in Taiwan, please post a trip report and tell us about your dives.
 
There's yet another decent dive center/hostel a few hundred meters behind the Houbihu harbor but I don't have their contact info and I can't recall the name.

Their English name (for what little it's worth) is South Green Diving. More important than the name is their contact info, which is: tel: 08-886-6338, 0936-063-688, 07-346-1497, fax 08-886-7865, Index , dive.life@msa.hinet.net. The do boat dives on Saturdays and Sundays for NT$1500 (2 dives, not including kit rental).

Their divemaster Harry speaks good English. Not sure about their other DM Don; never dived with him.

I dived Maobitou (not a lot better than the shore diving sites) and Xiao/Da Lao Gu (quite a nice dive, only accessible by boat, well worth the price) with them this past weekend. Boat leaves at 9 am, back around 1 or 1:30 pm.
 
https://www.shearwater.com/products/swift/

Back
Top Bottom