![[Carol's Dive Diary] Taiwan Northeast Coast Dive Site – Mosquito Pit (Hemei Street / 83.9K): The Adorable "Beginner's Village"](/_images/e547c16ebecc-960w.webp)
The dive club I learned to dive with had instructors and senior members who would take us to different dive sites based on our level. For us, Mosquito Pit was like the beginner's village in an online RPG — the place where we first "fought monsters" (encountered marine life) and "leveled up" (practiced neutral buoyancy).
Getting In and Out of the Water at Mosquito Pit
The site is located roughly halfway between Longdong South Cape Park and the Hemei community, at the 83.9K marker. Look for a gap in the guardrail on the left side of the road, head downhill, turn left at the T-junction, and follow the road all the way to the nine-hole abalone pools — that's where you'll find it (geographic information sourced from Northeast Coast Divers Inn https://inn.divers.com.tw/hello-world/).
Mosquito Pit doesn't dazzle you with jaw-dropping underwater spectacles. Instead, it offers adorable Clownfish, familiar scorpionfish, and lively schools of colorful small fish. It's a condensed showcase of the cute, everyday creatures found throughout Longdong Bay — and no matter when we dove here, the place always felt vibrant and full of life.
The entry and exit point at Mosquito Pit
Mosquito Pit has three dive routes. The image above shows the main entry/exit point. For detailed route maps, refer to the chart drawn by veteran diver Ko Chuan: https://reurl.cc/mdeN5A
After entering from the main entry point at Mosquito Pit and swimming in at a 120-degree bearing, you'll reach its most distinctive feature — the "fish-feeding area." This large reef rock is blanketed in coral, and among the swaying coral clusters you'll find dense, colorful schools of fish of all kinds, with plenty of the crowd-favorite Clownfish (Nemo) thrown in for good measure.
When instructor Ada took us beginners down to Mosquito Pit, his favorite trick was to line us up side by side along the reef like little radishes in a row, then take a group photo — it had a very "try-dive" feel to it, with a delightfully naive "we were here" charm. And honestly, we really were beginners back then. We knew almost nothing about marine life and were still fumbling with basic techniques. Yet the fish-feeding area was already enough to blow my mind. I could stare at it endlessly, wishing I could stay just a little longer to watch how the Clownfish lived there and what was hiding beneath the sea anemones.
8 July 2018 — Our instructor photographs us beginner students at the fish-feeding area as a keepsake
Mosquito Pit: A Must-Visit Northeast Coast Site for Beginners
I'm not sure whether it's because I spent my beginner days here, or simply because Mosquito Pit is genuinely easier to enter and exit than most other sites — with a maximum dive depth of just over 10 m — but diving here always feels especially reassuring. The marine life you encounter seems particularly friendly, and somehow you get the feeling they think the same of you.
I remember one time when our instructor took us to find cleaner shrimp. One cheeky little fellow actually jumped right onto him and started "cleaning," then moved along each of our outstretched arms in turn. Instructor Ada told us: "Among all the cleaner shrimp at Mosquito Pit, this one is the least afraid of people. It'll clean you — but first you have to find it." That fearless little cleaner shrimp already felt like a marvel to me. But what struck me as even more remarkable was how instructor Ada could recognize which cleaner shrimp it was… To me, they all looked exactly the same!
To me, all cleaner shrimp look completely identical
Same Dive Site, Very Different Dive Guides
Mysteries aside, because many club members serve as dive guides at Mosquito Pit, we had the chance to dive with a variety of them — and each one's individual style offered us something different to learn and discover.
For example, instructor Ada would remind us throughout every dive — both on land and underwater — to keep working on our technique, maintain good neutral buoyancy, and avoid disturbing the marine ecosystem. Safety was always on his mind, for us and for the creatures around us. From Ada, I learned the art of coexisting peacefully with the ocean.
Eagle-eyed Jia had an uncanny ability to spot marine critters hiding in plain sight: camouflaged crabs tucked away, frogfish playing dead as rocks, and all manner of beautiful nudibranch. Through Jia's eyes, we glimpsed the ocean's hidden wonders.
Shell guru James made sure we never walked past something rare without appreciating it. I remember in 2018, while James was dive guiding, he pointed insistently at a red coral and urged me to look closely. I stared with every ounce of concentration I had — and all I saw was red coral. I thought maybe he just wanted me to appreciate the structure and beauty of the coral itself.
Thankfully, James had his underwater camera with him. Back on the surface, he showed us the photo and explained: "That's a Conus shell — averaging 13–57 mm in size, living at depths of 10–37 m. So finding this one, measuring about 50 mm, on coral at around 10 m depth off the Northeast Coast is truly rare. Whoever spotted it was very lucky." After hearing that, I felt genuinely fortunate to have crossed paths with it. Thank you, James — without your commentary, I would have completely overlooked such a precious and seldom-seen treasure from the sea.
It was experiences like these — diving alongside different guides — that taught me the most important lesson I learned in the "beginner's village": in the world of diving, the instructor matters, but the dive guide matters just as much. A different guide leads you into a different underwater world, and reveals a different facet of the ocean's beauty.
The Conus shell James photographed at approximately 13–14 m depth in Mosquito Pit in 2018
Mosquito Pit is home to all kinds of adorable little creatures
I love Mosquito Pit. It's a dive site where you can truly unwind — like returning to an online game's beginner village after you've leveled up and looking at the low-level monsters you used to grind, feeling a wash of nostalgia for where it all began. So when you've been chasing rare marine life and are starting to feel the fatigue, or when you've been hopping between exotic dive sites and need a breather, maybe it's time to come to Mosquito Pit and just float in the water for a while. Enjoy the ease of a leisurely dive, say hello to those ordinary-yet-endearing marine critters, and rediscover the wide-eyed wonder you felt the very first time you dipped below the surface.
And if you're lucky enough, you won't just find a rare shell at Mosquito Pit — you might receive the site's greatest gift, just like our dive buddy Peipei did, and come face to face with a full-on baitball of tiny fish!
The baitball filmed by dive buddy Peipei at Mosquito Pit in 2019 — and apparently, this was only half of it
Related links:
