[ Apr.2019 ] In the morning of the third day of our stay in Miyako-jima, one of the islands in Okinawa in Japan, we stayed and relaxed on the hotel beach.
The colour of the sea was even more beautiful, but the waves were higher and the water temperature was a little colder.
We copied the Europeans by reading a book on the beach for a while, which is their typical way of spending their holiday.
Then, we went to the booking counter for the glass boat that the hotel organised.
But to our surprise, we found that their boat had engine trouble in the morning, so they cancelled all the planned sailings.
Disappointed, we went to the leisure counter in the hotel for their advice.
The same woman as the day before recommended the underwater cruising, run by Shigira Resort, in the south of the Miyako-jima island and she booked it for us.
It was near the German Cultural Park we had been the day before.
This boat was not a simple glass boat, but they had a room underneath the boat with windows so that people could see the underwater world at 25 metres deep.
The name of the boat was ‘Sea Sky Hakuai’ and it cost 2000 yen (£14.5, €16.4, $18.3) per person.
It goes from Hakuai Port.
When it started and we were still within the port, we were excited to see a sea turtle.
Then, when we were out of the port, we could see many small yellow and blue fish, a black and white striped kind of sea bream and anemones, too.
Hearing some information, such as that the corals carry out photosynthesis, we saw yellow corals, blue corals and so on.
There was a sea snake, too.
Unfortunately I did not see it, but my husband saw a shark.
On the way back, we saw the turtle again.
The underwater world is so beautiful.
I would have liked to go snorkeling, which I had experienced for the first time in Colombia a couple of years ago, to feel closer to the fish and the coral, but we could not do it this time because of my husband’s foot injury.
As an alternative, this boat was excellent and it was a very satisfactory 45 minutes.
Until then, our day was successful, but after that we became wanderers, seeking some food.
It was around 4 pm and every cafe and restaurant around there was closed.
There was a sort of food court, but they were serving only Miyako noodles.
We were at a loss.
After a while we decided to call a taxi to the centre of the main town on Miyako-jima, called Hirara.
The driver dropped us at the place where there were many bars and restaurants, saying “These places don’t open until late”.
As he said, the cafes and restaurants around here were closed at that time, too.
After walking around, finally we found a gelato shop called Ricco, which served drinks, too.
I had a cup of muscovado sugar milk and we had a good rest and were revived.
Here, we found another free guide booklet and this one was called ‘Tanoshima’, which had a lot of information on shops.
So, we walked around the town looking at shops.
One of the shops we popped in to was called Weather Permitting Okinawa, selling clothes and accessories made only in Okinawa.
The woman there was from Ibaraki prefecture and she was a diver.
She said that because she had fallen in love with the sea near the Shimoji Island, where we had been the day before, and the sea around Ikema Island, which is north of Miyako-jima, she decided to live here.
We had been wondering if it was worth visiting Ikema Island and because of her, we decided to visit there on the next day.
