Shelling in Kending

by Perrin

The bubbles that were streaming from my nose and mouth engulfed me as I ran out of breath. I grabbed the shell that I had had my eye on and burst to the surface, gulping for air. We were in Kending, at the end of Johanna and Danny’s time in Taiwan, and were spending it relaxing and playing on the beaches of the southwestern coast. We stayed at a comfortable, tropical hotel called The Red Garden that resembled a B&B. It overlooked a decent swimming beach and was about 5 minutes by car to the center of Kending. At night, the main street of Kending was turned into a huge night market lined with little restaurants and stalls that sold almost everything; including deep fried Oreos that we have yet to try.

            

  One of my favorite things to do is to go shelling, so at every beach we went to I was the first one in the water with my goggles on, diving down to find shells on the sandy ocean floor. On Monday, we had driven to a beach about 20 minutes away from our B&B. I had been here before but Jojo and Danny hadn’t. This beach appeared to have no shells at all, but when you went under water, and looked carefully and hard enough, you could find the beautiful treasures of the sea. We stayed there for about three hours and Johanna and I didn’t stop shell searching once.

            Tuesday was our cousins’ last day here. We wanted to go shelling again so we slathered some sunscreen on and walked down the road to the beach nearest to us. At first, we didn’t find any shells worth keeping, but then, when we moved to the other end of the beach, we found so many that we almost always came up from diving with a few exquisite ones that we would show everyone before diving back down. We were in a fairly shallow area, about 5 feet deep, but to find the tiny shells, you had to swim down so your face was inches from the bottom.

            

I love shelling because you work hard and use up all your breath, and then you get a reward. I also love the silence, muffled noises, and sound of crashing waves that you hear when you are under water. You feel like anything is possible when you are floating there, occasionally finding the beautiful homes of animals, long forgotten.

            When people ask me if I like the mountains or the ocean better I usually say the mountains, but actually, I probably like the beach just as much as the mountains, just in a different way. I love Kending, especially when I am with my cousins, and I love the beach, especially with shells. I hope to go to Kending again in the future!