For the first dive on Sunday we went to Kamiyama Labyrinth (Divesite #1). Adrian was unfortunately not joining us since he was attending a friends wedding.
It was really nice to dive through the caves
Quite amazing how many fishes actually live inside them!!
Chris on his way out of the cave.
A funny looking fish
And once again: good camouflage!
And FINALLY I had figured out the macro setting... So now I am ready for many more dives!!
These are indeed fish, looking like seaweed drifting by.
We saw two more white tip reefsharks in a cave, sleeping
More colourful fishes
and corals...
And this picture should ideally have been of a squid... Well, I guess he was just a little too fast for me... Nothing but ink left!
Ok, so I'm not going to win the "bad hair day" contest after all... :D
Enjoying the sun between the dives....
The second dive on Sunday we went to Naganu Island, Sugar Hills (Divesite # 3). The bottom was practically nothing but fine, white sand with some coral "hills". It was amazing how void the sandy landscape was compared to the coral hills which were full of life! We saw a lion fish who was feeding on some smaller fishes. I really like them, they are just so elegant and beautiful!
Life on the coral hill:
And once again clownfish enjoying the current... (Okinawa_17_Nemo)
From the coral hill we went on along the sandy bottom. After a while, a small sting ray appeared in the distance, but he wouldn't really let me come close... I tried to sneak me up to him, swimming like crazy against the current, but he was just so much better adapted to the environment...
And we found another seasnake which initially had her head in the sand. I guess Chris thought it was dead and pulled it out - which it obviously was not quite fond of... It swam to the surface after first coming at us.
Suddently, the current picked up and we decided to surface since we were just drifting off on the sandy bottom. I made a movie clip of Chris sending up the signal (Okinawa_18_Signal), and you can see how the cord waved in the current. Picking us up did not seem to be very easy either, we needed two attempts two get close enough to the boat ("Okinawa_19_PickUp").
For the third dive we went once again to Naganu.
A tiny, colourful hermit crab
and clown trigger fish
I saw this little fish quite a lot of times. When the sun shines, the blue spots on its back sparkle, and it reminded me a lot of the starry sky :-) Beautiful!! (It just lacked some auroral bands to be perfect :p)
Well, unfortunately that was my last dive - but I really enjoyed it! We had a little bumpy ride back, which I thought was great fun!! (Okinawa_20_BoatRide)
All the diving and seeing potential sushi-to-be swim by over the past days REALLY made me wanna eat some, and we decided to go out to a nice sushi place nearby
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where we obviously got tasty sushi :p
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Doug & Hanako
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Monday was the day I was going to fly back to Nagoya in the evening, so I could not dive anymore. And of course that was the only day where it poured down like hell... So instead of laying on the beach I went to have a look around in the american village.
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And found another nice pet to bring back home to join my hermit crab - although this one is not very much alive anymore :p And no, I think I am not going to drink this, even if it is Sake... Or - maybe I'll try it one day... I might just get too curious...
They have really nice flowers on Okinawa!!
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I have no idea how I managed to catch my flight, arriving less than 10 minutes before takeoff and well 15 minutes after the gate was closed... At least a personal record in coming late ;-) Too bad though, I really wouldn't have minded staying for a couple more days :p
From the plane I could enjoy a beautiful sunset over the east chinese sea
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Thanks Doug, Chris & Hanako down at Reef Encounters for an amazing time!! There's no doubt - I'll be back ;-)
