Kenting

Days here run out of a van rather than a harbour. Centres in Hengchun, Nanwan and along the Kenting strip load tanks in the morning and drive to whichever coast is out of the wind, so the plan is settled on the day and often changes between the first dive and the second. Divers gear up at the roadside or on a concrete slipway, walk down over rock and rubble, and time the last few steps to the swell. Boats do run from Houbihu for the offshore points, but most weeks the van is the dive boat.

The bottom is volcanic rock and old coral limestone rather than one continuous reef, and the sites differ mainly in how much water moves across them. The bays hold shallow platforms broken by sand channels, easy to potter over for an hour with a camera. The headlands are steeper, with boulder ridges stepping down past the sand into blue water and the tide running hard across the corners. Points facing the open Pacific on the east side only come into play in settled weather, and the north-east monsoon shuts them through the winter.

After dark is the other half of the appeal, and it changes how you judge the place. Ground that looks unremarkable in daylight turns over completely at night: shrimps out on the sand, parrotfish wedged and sleeping, octopus hunting across the rubble you swam that morning. Repetition pays in daylight too, since guides work particular stretches of rubble and sponge where they know the smaller animals sit, and a second look at a site usually beats the first.

It suits divers who want repetition rather than one set-piece: several dives a day, short drives between them, and a site list you can work through over a long weekend. The whole coast sits inside a national park, so ask before you touch anything, as collection and access rules vary by zone. Photographers get the most out of it, and it is a sensible place to build hours before the harder Kuroshio trips out to Lanyu or Green Island. Anyone after untouched reef or dependable big animals should look elsewhere.