Tonaki-jima, Trunks and Titanic-sized Turtles!
Well, the weather forecasters just can’t get it right in Okinawa at the moment. Sunday was supposed to have thunderstorms all day and yet the sun was blazing and the sea was almost flat. This led to some amazing diving at Tonaki-jima.
It was the first time any of us in the group had visited this particular island, so nobody really knew what conditions to expect. We were on a Japanese diving boat though and they assured us it was good. So, we set off and just under 2 hours later we were anchored at the dive site ready to get in. Took a seasickness tablet before getting on the boat and all through the day I didn’t feel bad once. Hopefully I can wean myself off them and regain the sea-legs that I had in Maldives.
After numerous cries of “sugooiiiii” and “kawaiiiiii” (meaning “great” and “cute”) from the Japanese tourists at the sight of my Force Fins, we jumped in and descended. I buddied up with Linds, while the 2 Brians buddied up in our foursome. The visibility on the outer islands is amazing, and here was no different. We could see soft corals, hundreds of fish and many nudibranches going about their daily lives. Brian managed to see a couple of stonefish too, that nobody else would have spotted. We also found a pufferfish and I got a couple of good snaps of that. There was a little surge near the dive boat but nothing too severe.
That dive was pretty sweet, and everyone was calm and relaxed through it. After the first dive we headed around the island and anchored not too far away from the harbour and main town on Tonaki-jima. Myself and Brian C decided to do some underwater reconnaissance and went snorkelling during the lunchbreak to find out where we should dive. I ended up snorkelling in only my trunks and booties, and was surprisingly warm. The water was over 26 degrees here and I was so close to diving without the wetsuit for our 2nd dive. My only fear was hitting a thermocline and the temperature suddenly dropping 3 or 4 degrees. We managed to see and swim not too far away from a turtle while snorkelling, and hoped it was a sign of things to come.
We were certainly proved right! We headed west off the dive boat (towards open sea) and followed the bottom until we reached a rock outcrop. There was some beautiful coral around there, along with some very big fish. The visibility here was even better than the first dive, which meant we could see a hell of a lot. We saw a small reefshark swimming close to us at one point, but after a little while it decided it was time for its lunch and headed away from us. But the prize of this dive was seeing a big turtle. It was sat on the bottom and must have been over a metre in length and width. I managed to get very close to it too to take some photos. As I started to move away it decided it didn’t want any more attention and started to swim away. I managed to get a couple more decent shots of it heading to the surface before it went out of sight. After that, everyone was just on a complete high and the rest of the dive was spent admiring what we had seen.
Sunbathed on the way back under gorgeous skies, and finally got home 14 and a half hours after I had left. But what a day of diving, and what a memory to get me through the week.
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Gorgeous pics Dave.