As I mentioned in the Penghu post, a highlight of our trip was going snorkeling. We showed up bright and early at the snorkel place and geared up (just barely squeezing into their largest wetsuit sizes) with a group of about 8 other snorkelers and three instructors. When we arrived at the part of the ocean where we'd be snorkeling, one of the instructors began to give a ten minute speech- all in Chinese of course. The one instructor who spoke a little English turned to us and said- "safety speech." He then proceeded to give us the one-minute basic version- basically just "not good go out too far." I mean, who needs a safety lesson when they're about to swim about in deep ocean waters surrounded by odd fish?

As soon as we put on our masks and looked down, it was like being in the Little Mermaid movie. Neon-colored rainbow fish darted inches from my face, long, pointed nose skimmer fish zipped on the surfaces of the water, and mini starfish crawled about. Brightly colored sea anemones lined the bottom of the seabed along with coral and weird eel-looking fish. One of the instructors actually caught a puffer fish and we all got a chance to hold him with his spikes poking out. They also gave us mushy bread to feed the sea creatures, and electric blue fish and some creepy gray ones literally swarmed us to feast on the snacks. After snorkeling for a while, our whole group took turns doing jumps, dives, and flips off one of the out-cropping rocks into the water.