Scuba diving in Japan sounded like such a strange idea when it was first mentioned to me! When I think of Japan I think of snow, huge cities, and sushi. It’s not the first location that pops into my head when thinking of ‘prime diving destinations’. To be completely honest, when I received a phone call asking if I would like to travel to Okinawa, Japan, to experience the diving, my first reaction was “is this a prank?”. But then a quick google search enlightened me to the tropical waters of Okinawa!
Okinawa is the most southern region of Japan, sitting close to the equator. The air temperature in July was around 30 degrees every day, and the water temperature was nearly 30degrees!! Driving from the airport to the hotel, I thought I was in Hawaii!
We flew in to Naha Airport and spend a few days around Naha city, what a place! Okinawa’s residents live such a healthy lifestyle. They eat fresh foods and lots of seafood.
A short one-hour flight took us over to Ishigaki Island, and it wasn’t long until we were out on the boat.
The first thing I noticed on the water was the contrast of colours, the water is a crystal clear blue, and the tropical greenery of the land pops out of the surface.
As with anywhere we started with a paddle in a sheltered area of water, only 5m deep we could see the coral from the surface! Huge fields of hard corals as far as the eye can see! Even with such warm water, the colour of the coral was vibrant and the best part was the abundance of fish around us!
I was now really looking forward to the next dive. We headed about 45m around the corner to a dive site called Manta City Point – a popular cleaning station for manta rays. Why was I so excited? Because I had never seen a Manta Ray up close underwater before!
Manta City Point, Ishigaki Japan from Emma Likes To Scuba on Vimeo.
AWESOME!!!!
So make sure to stop by Okinawa when you next head over to Japan!
Oh, and did I mention you can see it all on the official episode from the Okinawa: A journey of Discover campaign 😉