Wantonmien
Contributor
Hi All,
Had hoped one of the other Taiwan divers on the Orchid Island trip would add a few words onto this forum - but here we go, my summary of excellent dive trip I went on last weekend to make the most of the public holidays in Taiwan.
After a trip to Boracay with grotty weather and capping off diving there with drowing my camera :depressed: - Landed back in Taiwan at dawn on Wednesday, and with new camera in hand Saturday April 2 at dawn it was on the bullet train from Taipei, met by a mate down South, and on the road for 2 hours plus to meet up with the 17 or so expat divers at Kenting port, to head to Orchid Island on trip organised once again by Andy Gray www.taiwandive.com - Kenting - Green Island - Orchid Island - XiaoLiuChiu -- Many thanks to Andy of course, for all the arrangements and aggrevation that go's with it, appreciated.
Ferry trip - not as bad as expected, around 2.5 hours, seas realatively calm and enjoyed the crossing, in sunshine from the rear top deck with the bunch.
Arrival Orchid late afternoon, picked up the traditional Taiwan mode of trasnsport - a scooter, to the basic hotel (which could be better and could be worse) but with gear in room - rapid plans and just 6 of us decided we'd start the trip with a night dive.
Dive 1Darkness fell, in we ventured off the shore and the first life I saw in torchlight in about 5m of water a beautiful ray, right in front of me and ruffling it's sides as it woke to find itself in the spotlight - casually it carried on its lazy way hunting food - a beautiful sight. Not sure of the type as it was oddly tailess, roundish and of course my new camera wasn't risked. One of the buds has a video of it so hopefully we'll get the link to vid on here. After 10 mins or so we'd lost Andy
and left the beautiful ray in peace. Further into the dive, lobsters, soles, snakes, a turtle, garfish, nudi's, box fish, puffers, crabs, shrimps - the ocean was full of life - and have to say that was the best night dive I've ever had - excellent.
Gear off, clean and to our boat captains idyllic bar on the beach - it was dinner time, well should have been but discovered that on Orchid Island after 21:00 the only food or restaurants available is if you've booked beforehand :shocked2: -- bread and beers soon got rid of the hunger !!
Sunday morning Dive 2 - Off the boat (which was painted a rather odd pink clour inside) it was down the line to the wreck of an old Korean cargo ship that had sunk and broken into 3 or so pieces. Descending down the line, immediately the huge wreck sitting at 35 m depth came into view, viz was crystal clear - maybe 30m or so, no current and the wreck had countless places to delve around and look into. Can't say it was overly abundant with life, but at that depth, avoiding deco limits allowed me (and others) to skirt around the bottom and gradually make way up to the shallowest point - good dive, 40 mins or so, plenty to see and maybe the most memorable moment was when I peered into a hold and literally came face to face with a couple of large batfish.
Dive 3 - Off the boat, 'Airport dive' - a wall / corals / reef - and for me the most important thing - I risked the new G12 in the same housing that had leaked and runied G11 camera a few days earlier (that's anothes story and my fault ... dammed silicon !!). Nowt too unusual on the dive, but vey enjoyable, plenty of photo characters and ---- the housing didn't leak, phew !!
Dive 4 - Sun out, dammed hot, off the boat just outside harbour and the 'Blue Hole' a nice swim through cave in darkness towards blue crystal clear water. Reef, plenty of life, numerous Nudi's and other subjects to play around with the camera and get some decent pics. Good dive.
Dinner --- well overdue, and this time a prebooked restaurant, with 9 or so of the others, good food, good laughs, plenty of beers, and a scooter that seemed just a little wobbly on the way back to the hotel - via the beach bar and last orders !
Day 2 Dive 5 - Again to the wreck, instead of the line I went direct head down to overtake those dangling on the line and hit the bottom, only to find at the corner of the wreck unlike day before a wicked current, preventing a swim around it. Boat captain (name Coco ? or Captain as we called him) motioned me over and three of us headed away from main wreck section to a flatter section, peering under and around, for large groupers known to be there, I chickened out of a swim through, as let's say it looked a 'little tight' - but enjoyed the dive, with a large Tuna (or did someone say Trevalis or two) checking us out. Dive not as good as day before, but still a good one.
Dive 6 - Old Mans head (or rock) - close to the shoreline, reef, gulleys, good rock formations and a casual dive, with plenty of life and things to see, though a little light on anything too unusual.
Dive 7 - Weather had taken a turn for the worse, and having said I'd do another night dive, by 17:00 I was beginning to go off the idea as the tiredness crept in - but with bigger group, off we set and in we went. Followed direct West bearing and after getting into a gulley and finding half a dozen snakes looming around, taking pics and lurking around, looked around in the blackness and couldn't see another of the group or shimmer of a torvch anywhere .. oops, don't normally dive solo in darkness with plenty of snakes around, but no problem, headed the direction I thought all group were meant to have !! Eventually saw another of group, and enjoyed the dive with box fish, puffers, nudi's, vey large edible crabs etc etc - and finally on the way out, perhaps the most unusual fish of the trip for me, a catfish around half a metre long - biggest I've ever seen in the Ocean.
After the last dive and gear wash, beer o'clock came, BBQ at the boat captains beach pub, and blearly eyes.
And that was it, all dives good, perhaps not as good as I'd hoped for in that 'large fish' were few and far between (and of course I had Green Island Hammerheads the previous month) but all around - Orchid Island, well worth the trip, all dives good, visibility (25 m + every dive) about the best I've seen in Taiwan, water between 24~26 C - so not quite up to summer levels, but not too bad. Out of the water, and around the island, very laid back, goats and few pot bellied pigs casually wandering the streets, not developed, not busy, unspoilt and great scenery. I liked the place - a lot.
Uploaded a load of my pics from Orchid here - ScubaBoard Gallery - Orchid Island, Taiwan - April 2-5 2011
Some of the one's I think are best are below - first lot with the new Canon G12.
Cheers
Unusal colour - first I've seen like that ?
A variation !
Especially for Paul & Etsuko in Shanghai - !!!
Finally got a macro of a Nudi as good as my buddy takes :cool2:
and another
and another
Great photo subjects
Has to be the nicest coloured fish in the ocean
From the Blue hole.
The wreck - just to show the scale
Had hoped one of the other Taiwan divers on the Orchid Island trip would add a few words onto this forum - but here we go, my summary of excellent dive trip I went on last weekend to make the most of the public holidays in Taiwan.
After a trip to Boracay with grotty weather and capping off diving there with drowing my camera :depressed: - Landed back in Taiwan at dawn on Wednesday, and with new camera in hand Saturday April 2 at dawn it was on the bullet train from Taipei, met by a mate down South, and on the road for 2 hours plus to meet up with the 17 or so expat divers at Kenting port, to head to Orchid Island on trip organised once again by Andy Gray www.taiwandive.com - Kenting - Green Island - Orchid Island - XiaoLiuChiu -- Many thanks to Andy of course, for all the arrangements and aggrevation that go's with it, appreciated.
Ferry trip - not as bad as expected, around 2.5 hours, seas realatively calm and enjoyed the crossing, in sunshine from the rear top deck with the bunch.
Arrival Orchid late afternoon, picked up the traditional Taiwan mode of trasnsport - a scooter, to the basic hotel (which could be better and could be worse) but with gear in room - rapid plans and just 6 of us decided we'd start the trip with a night dive.
Dive 1Darkness fell, in we ventured off the shore and the first life I saw in torchlight in about 5m of water a beautiful ray, right in front of me and ruffling it's sides as it woke to find itself in the spotlight - casually it carried on its lazy way hunting food - a beautiful sight. Not sure of the type as it was oddly tailess, roundish and of course my new camera wasn't risked. One of the buds has a video of it so hopefully we'll get the link to vid on here. After 10 mins or so we'd lost Andy
and left the beautiful ray in peace. Further into the dive, lobsters, soles, snakes, a turtle, garfish, nudi's, box fish, puffers, crabs, shrimps - the ocean was full of life - and have to say that was the best night dive I've ever had - excellent.Gear off, clean and to our boat captains idyllic bar on the beach - it was dinner time, well should have been but discovered that on Orchid Island after 21:00 the only food or restaurants available is if you've booked beforehand :shocked2: -- bread and beers soon got rid of the hunger !!
Sunday morning Dive 2 - Off the boat (which was painted a rather odd pink clour inside) it was down the line to the wreck of an old Korean cargo ship that had sunk and broken into 3 or so pieces. Descending down the line, immediately the huge wreck sitting at 35 m depth came into view, viz was crystal clear - maybe 30m or so, no current and the wreck had countless places to delve around and look into. Can't say it was overly abundant with life, but at that depth, avoiding deco limits allowed me (and others) to skirt around the bottom and gradually make way up to the shallowest point - good dive, 40 mins or so, plenty to see and maybe the most memorable moment was when I peered into a hold and literally came face to face with a couple of large batfish.
Dive 3 - Off the boat, 'Airport dive' - a wall / corals / reef - and for me the most important thing - I risked the new G12 in the same housing that had leaked and runied G11 camera a few days earlier (that's anothes story and my fault ... dammed silicon !!). Nowt too unusual on the dive, but vey enjoyable, plenty of photo characters and ----
the housing didn't leak, phew !!Dive 4 - Sun out, dammed hot, off the boat just outside harbour and the 'Blue Hole' a nice swim through cave in darkness towards blue crystal clear water. Reef, plenty of life, numerous Nudi's and other subjects to play around with the camera and get some decent pics. Good dive.
Dinner --- well overdue, and this time a prebooked restaurant, with 9 or so of the others, good food, good laughs, plenty of beers, and a scooter that seemed just a little wobbly on the way back to the hotel - via the beach bar and last orders !
Day 2 Dive 5 - Again to the wreck, instead of the line I went direct head down to overtake those dangling on the line and hit the bottom, only to find at the corner of the wreck unlike day before a wicked current, preventing a swim around it. Boat captain (name Coco ? or Captain as we called him) motioned me over and three of us headed away from main wreck section to a flatter section, peering under and around, for large groupers known to be there, I chickened out of a swim through, as let's say it looked a 'little tight' - but enjoyed the dive, with a large Tuna (or did someone say Trevalis or two) checking us out. Dive not as good as day before, but still a good one.
Dive 6 - Old Mans head (or rock) - close to the shoreline, reef, gulleys, good rock formations and a casual dive, with plenty of life and things to see, though a little light on anything too unusual.
Dive 7 - Weather had taken a turn for the worse, and having said I'd do another night dive, by 17:00 I was beginning to go off the idea as the tiredness crept in - but with bigger group, off we set and in we went. Followed direct West bearing and after getting into a gulley and finding half a dozen snakes looming around, taking pics and lurking around, looked around in the blackness and couldn't see another of the group or shimmer of a torvch anywhere .. oops, don't normally dive solo in darkness with plenty of snakes around, but no problem, headed the direction I thought all group were meant to have !! Eventually saw another of group, and enjoyed the dive with box fish, puffers, nudi's, vey large edible crabs etc etc - and finally on the way out, perhaps the most unusual fish of the trip for me, a catfish around half a metre long - biggest I've ever seen in the Ocean.
After the last dive and gear wash, beer o'clock came, BBQ at the boat captains beach pub, and blearly eyes.
And that was it, all dives good, perhaps not as good as I'd hoped for in that 'large fish' were few and far between (and of course I had Green Island Hammerheads the previous month) but all around - Orchid Island, well worth the trip, all dives good, visibility (25 m + every dive) about the best I've seen in Taiwan, water between 24~26 C - so not quite up to summer levels, but not too bad. Out of the water, and around the island, very laid back, goats and few pot bellied pigs casually wandering the streets, not developed, not busy, unspoilt and great scenery. I liked the place - a lot.
Uploaded a load of my pics from Orchid here - ScubaBoard Gallery - Orchid Island, Taiwan - April 2-5 2011
Some of the one's I think are best are below - first lot with the new Canon G12.
Cheers
Unusal colour - first I've seen like that ?
A variation !
Especially for Paul & Etsuko in Shanghai - !!!
Finally got a macro of a Nudi as good as my buddy takes :cool2:
and another
and another
Great photo subjects
Has to be the nicest coloured fish in the ocean
From the Blue hole.
The wreck - just to show the scale
