After a fun morning at Jibei Island, we took the 18-minute boat journey back to Penghu mainland for our next destination – 青灣海洋牧場 (Marine Leisure Farm).  To get there, we will need to take a boat from 南海遊客中心 South Sea Visitor Centre (near Magong City).

This is an organised tour run by 和慶 so the boat departs at fixed timings (每日航班：0830、0840、1000、1010、1300、1310、1430、1440) from the Visitor Centre harbour.  More information about the tour is available at http://www.phhc.com.tw/travel.php but everything is written in Traditional Chinese so I will try to translate some of the pertinent points here. 🙂

This tour is only available from March to October each year (this year it starts at 16 March 2013 and ends at 15 October 2013 – 3月16日起至10月15日止).  It will cost NT 500 for adults/ NT 300 for child (3 – 12 years old) / Free for child below 3 years old (票價:大人500/人 小孩:300/人(3-12歲) 3歲以下不用錢).  Guests should “check-in” 20 minutes before departure (提早20分鐘到服務台辦理報到手續).

The entire tour will take about 4 hours – about 1 hour cruising around Green Bay and 3 hours at the Marine Leisure Farm (活動時間約近4小時) and the itinerary will be like this:

– Enjoy views of coral reef on seabed via specially made portholes at the bottom of the boat

– Arrive at Marine Leisure Farm 『海洋牧場箱網平台』where you can:

• Savour free flow seafood porridge
• Barbeque and eat free flow oysters
• Fishing for squid and fishes
• Boat Paddling around the Leisure Farm

If you can read Traditional Chinese, this is the itinerary of what you can expect to see when cruising around Green Bay with this 和慶 tour.  If you can’t, never mind, just experience it for yourself when you take the tour boat (just heads-up, the tour is conducted in Chinese too but the views are adequate if you don’t need to know the exact history and geography of the hill over there and the ridge over here).  If you are a fan of the song “外婆的澎湖灣“, the tour will also try to point out the “陽光、沙灘、海浪、仙人掌及老（帥）船 長” or “Sunshine, Beach, Waves, Cactus, Old Ship Captain” parts of the song 🙂

• 南海遊客中心搭船-航行中專人全程講解、導覽→船上救生衣正確穿著教學與宣導→
• 噴水迎賓儀式（全澎湖第一家也是唯一的一家；體驗海軍最高噴水迎賓禮）→
• 馬 公陸上鐵達尼-菊島之星(菊島由來及大船入港的說法)→馬公港彩繪油桶(HI！PENGHU歡迎嘉賓)→馬公港海洋之母(澎湖海洋生態源源不絕)→馬公貨 港（享尊榮生活）→馬公港-港務大樓(澎湖新地標)→馬公二級古蹟順承門 (馬公城地名的由來)→
• 金龍頭→尋找及造訪外婆的澎湖灣：（告訴您潘安邦的故居及外婆的家在那裡，並且為您訴說「陽光、沙灘、海浪、仙人掌及老（帥）船 長」的詳實位置！→感受南環（澎南）
• 月牙灣的地景及風貌之壯觀：蛇頭山【中荷.中法.中日戰爭的海上古戰場及紀念碑的遺址】→風櫃【風櫃洞、風櫃聽濤的 氣勢】→青灣國際仙人掌公園的成效】→嵵裡紗帽山、山水、鎖港的傳奇.

The tour starts with a cruise around Green Bay (青灣).  Green Bay is a natural inlet stretching from the west of Shih-lishamao Mountain (蒔里紗帽山) in Makung City to Fengkui (風櫃).  The bay’s ecosystem is mainly composed of coral reefs, which are a habitat for many species of fish, shrimps, crabs and sea shells.

The 和慶 tour boats are actually “half-submarine” (半潛艇) so a part of the cruise involves going below deck to take a look at Green Bay’s coral reefs (欣賞青灣海底珊瑚礁) through portholes at the lower deck of the boat.  The boat will stop its engine in the middle of Green Bay and once all the bubbles and sand had settled, you should be able to see the coral reefs with clownfishes (or better known as Nemo) swimming amidst it.  Unfortunately for us, we were there when the tides were changing so there was a lot of underwater currents which stirred up the sand, making the view very murky but you can still make out the outline of some of the coral reefs.  The best thing about this part of the cruise is that the lower deck is air-conditioned – so a quick escape from the summer heat on deck. 🙂  Once the boat moves, the view becomes very murky with the ship propeller stirring up the sand and water around the boat so you will still need to move up deck after this short stop around the coral reefs.

After stopping by the coral reefs of Green Bay, the boat will then bring all guests to the Marine Leisure Farm 「和慶海上平台樂園」.  The group will have 3 hours of free time at the Marine Leisure Farm where guests can do anything of the following or all of them for free!

• Enjoy a free flow of oysters – you will have to BBQ them yourself (超大肥美鮮嫩飽滿之「牡蠣」無限碳烤，讓您吃到飽、吃到怕，挑戰 您肚子的容量。並且還可以成為「烤牡蠣的達人」哦);
• Savour seafood porridge (also free flow) 道地、古早味之「海鮮粥」無限供應，豐富多料讓您垂涎三尺、口齒留香，征服您挑剔的味蕾;
• Sing the afternoon away at the only KTV station (「卡拉ＯＫ」無限歡唱);
• Enjoy the view of the sea and Magong harbour from the 2nd Floor observation deck (「二Ｆ觀景台」可觀看到拱形、美白的外觀，一窺馬公港的景觀、澎南（南環）的全貌)

All guests can help themselves to the free flow seafood porridge – self-service by scooping from a huge pot of porridge – remember to dig deep because that’s where all the good stuff e.g. prawns, clams and other seafood are (at the bottom of the pot).  Expect long queues at the pot.

For the oysters, there are trays of raw oysters available at the bar counter – just help yourselves to the trays when you are done with your own tray of oysters.  Wasabi sauces are available too.

There is only one TV with KTV console – I am not sure about the variety of songs but first, you will have to contend with groups of aunties and uncles who are just as eager to sing their hearts out.

Barbequing oysters is not an easy task – some oysters can be rather stubborn and typically, it involves a lot of knocking on the table, prying and waiting and when the oysters are cooked, expect spurts of hot sea water from the oysters but well, you have 3 hours to slowly enjoy the oysters here at the Marine Leisure Farm.

One thing to note is not to drink the “soup” in the oyster shells even when it is cooked.  Those are not the essence or “soup” of the oysters – just heated sea water.

Besides the activities mentioned above i.e. free flow oysters, seafood porridge, fishing and KTV, all other food and drinks are chargeable (i.e. no drinks are provided).  After a sumptuous meal of oysters, you are bound to feel very thirsty so bring your own water (it is allowed) or buy from the Marine Leisure Farm.  There are other cooked food for sale too e.g. squid, cuttlefish, octopus.  平台上之各式飲料、海鱺魚二吃、花枝（魷魚）二吃、黃臘鰺二吃及其他料理均為自費項目

All utensils, BBQ tongs and charcoal for BBQ-ing (you can request for more charcoal) are provided – so just BBQ away!

Check out the video below for some simple steps on how to cook/bbq the oysters and what else you can do on the Marine Leisure Farm for 3 hours!

Once you are done with your BBQ-ing, you can do some fishing at the platform beside the Marine Leisure Farm – it is catch and release though (in fact even stricter, you are not allowed to pull the fishes out of the water!  You will be charged NT 500 if you do that).  You won’t be fishing from the open seas – these fishes are bred on the platform and they swim around within the net.

All you can do is let the fish finish eating the bait and it will swim off by itself – but still there is slight thrill of something latching on to your fishing rod’s line.  There is no hook on the line so it won’t hurt the fish too.

Don’t worry if you haven’t fished before or don’t want to get your hands dirty by fixing the bait – the staff will fix the bait for you – all you have to do is take the fishing rods (there are a lot of them) with bait fixed and go fishing!

For a quick and easy trip planning guide – check out our Day 2 trip itinerary created with Qiito.

TransAsia Airways flies daily direct flights to Taipei Taoyuan Airport from Singapore. To get to Penghu, you can take the TransAsia Airways domestic flights from Taipei Songshan Airport.