Dive report: Kenting, South end of Taiwan

From our lodging in Kaohsiung, I popped in a cab at 5:30 am to the
Kaohsiung bus depot and caught a bus (local, big mistake) to Kenting to
try the diving. Prior, I had contacted a local dive guide who picked me
up at the bus stop in Hengchun, just North of Kenting. Kenting is a nice
little beachy resort town, Taiwan style. The architecture is
non-descript and a little run down, but the weather is usually sunny and
hot and the water's warm. (27 C at depth today.)

Our first dive was right off the 'beach' which in this case was a rocky
entry on sharp lava rock. Gloves and thick, felt-armored booties a Must.
We wore 3mm wetsuits. The rental gear was OK and well maintained. We
picked up tanks at a dive shop along the road from Hengchun to Kenting -
not the first but the second shop, white building, big dive flag sign.
Good shop and good fills there. Then we continued through Kenting to
Sail Rock, just south of town.

There is a little parking area just south of some houses that sit in
front of Sail Rock. We suited up at the van and walked between the
houses down to the entry point. The entry point was very cool, stepping
off the rocks from calf deep water into a tidal pool about 15' deep,
next to Sail Rock, a large vertical rock pillar about 40 feet high. At
the bottom, on the south side of the rock, is a nice small swim through
into open water, where the reef starts right away. The rock blocks
incoming waves, although there were none on this dive. Vis was excellent
.... about 25 meters. Nice blue water. This reef was very healthy. No
bleaching that I noticed. A nice assortment of fish, although no real
large schools. A lot of juveniles, but very colorful. Saw, in no
particular order, a Nudibranch, blue with white stripes. A Lionfish; a
pair of mating snails; a large trumpetfish; some Sea Cucumbers; a Spiny
Lobster; only one spiny Sea Urchin and a 24" Banded Snake Eel. Also many
Clownfish hanging in the anemones. The guide also pointed out Cuttlefish
eggs, looking like ping pong balls, cleverly hidden inside some
finger-type coral.

We swam along the bottom, following the reef edge for 30 minutes,
swimming into an almost imperceptable current, to a depth of 13 msw, and
then turned around to swim above the reef coming back. Unfortunately, at
about 30 fsw, I noticed the onset of a reverse sinus block. I then knew
that this was going to be the only dive for the day and that really was
a disappointment, but we spent another 32 minutes cruising back. Decent
pain on the final 15' of ascent and I had some numbness in my teeth,
from sinus pressure on the maxillary nerve. Decongestant and Tylenol
worked on the pain within three hours. Numbness was gone within 48
hours. Anyway, a great dive. Exiting was not too difficult, due to the
protected location and the reasonable ledges to climb up on. An
excellent site.

Bart F.