Sleeping Under the Stars on Okinawa Island

After working the snow season at Nozawa-Onsen, Japan a group of us went on a one week escapade, road-trip traveling the entire Okinawan coast.

Each morning we would bathe in the warm ocean waters, surrounded only by the soft sound of gentle lapping waves. Every night we slept under the starlit skies while the fire began to fade into another day.

Waking up and opening your eyes to blue cloud streaked skies brought on sensations of peace and equanimity that I will never forget.

Oyasumi Okinawa

Okinawa Island lies in the Okinawa Prefecture of Japan and is the southernmost prefecture of the country. It is the largest of all the Okinawan islands but is still comprised of only 1200 square kilometres of land. Surrounded entirely by stunning crystal turquoise waters and eclectic marine life, the scuba diving and snorkelling ventures that this island (and various other Okinawan islands in the close vicinity) has to offer are mesmerising and still relatively untraveled.

The Island is world renowned for being the home to the greatest population of longest living people i.e. the Okinawan Centenarians. It is also the host of many US military bases, and the influence of this can be seen in the (sometimes) bleak architecture of buildings scattered across the island, and in the slightly more relaxed culture of the charming Okinawan people.

To get there, we flew by Peach air from Tokyo to Naha, the main Okinawan airport, for a 5,000 yen (~$50 USD) each way sale fare (these sale fares are quite regular). After picking up a rental car from the nearest rent-a-car store for less than 30,000 yen in total for the entire week (~$300 USD), we headed to a hostel for the night.

From there, we spent the next week road tripping the entire Okinawan Island coastal border, stopping off at the nearest beach to set up camp when dusk started to show its colours.

As the self-proclaimed fire queen, I made sure that there was a substantial flaming fire each night to both, cook our food and keep warm for the cool nights and early mornings. Though, the weather during the day time was perfect; breezy, sunny and warm.

One of the highlights of our trip was visiting the famous Okinawan Aquarium. Albeit my ethical ambivalence about animal institutions like zoos and aquariums, this aquarium was brilliant in educating people about the relevance and importance of environmental and marine conservation.

We also made a visit to the Blue Caves. I don’t remember the name of the company we went with, but there is an abundance of dive shops that guide a visit to these iridescent blue caves. Note: we were made to wear (at all times) an abundance of gear (wetsuit, flippers, gloves, life jacket) in light of catering to bigger less ocean-exposed groups perhaps. For a beach loving Aussie, this proved to be quite annoying when I wanted to go for a dive underwater, which *surprise* is not quite possible in a life jacket (in a moment of frustration I did take the jacket off causing some panic for our guides). As such, I would recommend checking with the dive shop about what gear is mandatory if you prefer a freer snorkelling experience.

Getting to the cave itself is a relatively easy walk along the low rise cliff side, over some bigger pinnacle rocks and a very short underwater swim through a submerged cave entrance. Alas, the result:

Inside the Blue Cave

On our last night on the island, the weather gods decided to remind us of their presence; a torrential storm came and stayed for the night. This was the one and only night we utilised our two-man tent to fit five people. There was very little beach to set our tent up on so by the early morning we could hear the lapping of the ocean water at the very wall of our tent during high tide. The storm and tide both came and left, leaving an array of washed up debris along the coastline.

Overall, my week on Okinawa Island was beautiful and serene. It is a must visit destination and I can’t wait to visit again for more dives and baths on the beach!

Divers’ tan

Characteristic looking Japanese parsnips…

Compulsory excessive snorkelling gear, the Japanese are a pre-cautious kind 🙂

Flaming Ring of Fire