Dive Okinawa, dive a different world

by Charles Whipple

Until 1879, Okinawa was a separate kingdom, a vassal nation that paid tribute both to China and to Japan. Today, Okinawa is part of Japan, but beneath the waves it remains a different world to sport divers — a subtropical chain that swaps grey northern seas for warm water, staghorn thickets and a clarity locals still call Kerama Blue.

Naha and the coral gardens of Chiibishi

When it came time for the coral to spawn, at the full of the moon in June, I hied myself to Naha, Okinawa, with a bunch of scuba divers. In Tokyo, a typhoon battered the city. In Okinawa, the sun burned down out of cobalt skies; the ocean was a mirror.

Day one we dived the labyrinth and coral gardens at Chiibishi, a cluster of tiny islets strung along the line out to the Kerama group. Beneath the waves, coral gardens greeted us — vast plots of staghorn, interspersed with gorgonian fans, table coral, and species I didn't recognize. Once in a while the blue-purple lips of a giant clam interrupted the coral continuum. Fish were bright and plentiful: wrasses, blennies, the occasional lionfish, damsels, yellow juvenile tangs, surgeons, snappers, grunts, and yuzen angels — flashing brilliant blue and yellow, or cleverly hiding when air-breathing monsters from an alien place ventured near.

Labyrinths through the coral gave us an adventuresome dive that finished too soon, as all interesting dives do. We tied up at a WWII-vintage concrete pier on deserted Kamiyama Island for lunch, slipping in alongside another dive boat. While the boats sat, a lone man in a floppy straw hat worked a hand line from his wooden sabani about 500 meters off shore — the only native Okinawan craft I saw that day.

Out to the Keramas and the Man-Rock

Day two was the same brazen sky, the same hot sun, the same mirror of an ocean. We roared out of Naha harbor and sped for the Kerama Islands, steering north of the group. Hate (say Hah-teh) Island passed on the left, then Koku Island, until the mountains of Zamami rose in the distance.

A couple of miles off the Zamami shoreline we faced a pinnacle that broke 70 meters out of the water. To ancient Okinawans it appeared phallic, so they named it “Ugan,” or Man-Rock. Considering the underwater layout, though, Ugan is more like an upthrusting thumb protruding from a clenched fist of solid rock 18 meters down, the fist resting on a plateau 50 meters below. We backrolled in within ten meters of the pinnacle and into one of the most amazing underwater vistas I have ever seen. Ugan is no coral formation — it gives no garden-of-the-gods view of shallow coral fields — but its dynamic, ridged and furrowed shape is breathtaking, and it shows you sealife the coral gardens don't. We happened across a small blue ribbon eel, its nostrils ending in fluted yellow feathers, nestled in a cleft at the thumb's base. Sharks sometimes coast these waters, I was told, though we saw none.

The second and third dives were at Ariga-kita and Bishipu-jima. Ariga-kita is a shallow dive where we wended among coral heads dotting pure white sand — pyramid angels, lionfish, saury-pike, moorish idols — until we shed our fins for an impromptu, slow-motion underwater long-jump over the sand. The longest leap was only about ten meters, and swimming was not allowed. Chuckling into our regulators, we started back to the boat examining coral heads, and I nearly swam right past my first frogfish, so cleverly camouflaged it might have been another chunk of coral. The Bishipu dive turned up something unusual too: a big scorpionfish convinced he looked exactly like coral.

Kerama today: a marine national park

Much has changed since that trip, and much has been protected. In 2014 the waters I roamed were designated Kerama Islands National Park, recognition of the famous “Kerama Blue” clarity and of reefs that draw divers and snorkelers from across Japan. The white-sand sites off Zamami, Aka and Tokashiki still hold green and hawksbill turtles, and the coral that came back so strongly after the crown-of-thorns years remains the heart of the diving. Boats run daily from Naha's Tomari port, and fast ferries carry day-trippers out to island bases. It is, deservedly, Japan's most celebrated dive region.

Manta season at Ishigaki

Carry on southwest into the Yaeyama Islands and the headline act changes. Off Ishigaki, the famous Manta Scramble at Kabira Ishizaki is a cleaning and feeding station where reef mantas queue over the coral heads while small fish tidy them up. The season generally runs from late spring into autumn, with the surest encounters in September and October; spring brings the chance of courtship trains. It is one of the most reliable places on earth to dive with mantas, and an easy hop by air from Naha.

Miyako's caves and arches

Closer to Naha, Miyakojima trades coral gardens for geology. Off the linked islands of Irabu and Shimoji lie Japan's signature cavern dives: Antonio Gaudi, a maze of intricate arches and holes that genuinely recalls the architect's curving stonework; the Devil's Palace, a long swim-through that opens into chambers where shafts of sunlight fall like spotlights through the roof; and Tori Pond, where divers ascend from the open sea into an inland pool through a great natural arch. These are dramatic, light-filled dives best suited to confident divers comfortable in overhead environments.

Plan your route across the prefecture's reefs with the Dive Japan maps, and for Okinawa's wild western frontier — hammerhead schools in winter — read up on Yonaguni Island.

Plan your dive

Best season: roughly March to November. Kerama dives year-round; Ishigaki mantas peak September–October; coral spawning lights up the reefs around the June full moon.
Water temperature: about 27–29°C in summer, dropping to around 21°C from January to March — a 3mm suit in summer, 5mm in winter.
Visibility: commonly 20–40 m, and over 50 m on the best summer days — the celebrated Kerama Blue.
Marine life: staghorn and table coral, giant clams, reef sheltering fish, sea turtles, reef mantas at Ishigaki, frogfish and scorpionfish for the patient.
Level: plenty of calm, shallow sites for beginners; Ugan-style pinnacles and Miyako's caves and arches are better for experienced divers.
Getting there: fly into Naha for the Keramas (boats from Tomari port and island ferries); connect onward by short flights to Ishigaki and Miyako for the Yaeyama and Miyako sites.

If you can time it, dive the June full moon out of Naha — the coral spawning turns the Kerama reefs into something you do not forget.

Charles Whipple was a writer who lived in Japan for more than 20 years. An avid diver, he contributed diving articles to Australian, New Zealand, Japanese and American diving magazines, and was always willing to help a fellow diver get acquainted in Japan. Mr. Charles T. Whipple passed away in 2019; this article has been lightly updated in his memory. Rest in peace.

Copyright of the article and photos on this page were reserved for Charles Whipple. The copyright now belongs to the person who has inherited it.

More than a decade ago, during the New Year holidays, I dived the Kerama Islands. We flew into a tiny island airport in the Keramas on a tiny plane from Naha. It was the place of my first night dive, and I still remember it vividly. — Junko Pascoe