Under the Sea

If you think the last set of pictures were amazing, just wait because the real beauty is under the water!  No joke, these islands are well-known to have some of the best snorkeling and diving in the world.

Sea turtles are just about the coolest thing ever.

 

 

Picasso triggerfish

 

 

 

 

 

Clown triggerfish

 

 

 

 

Threadfin butterfly

 

 

 

 

 

Moorish idols

 

 

This one (a six-bar wrasse) literally followed me around.  It’s like it was begging “take my picture”!

 

 

Yellowtail clownfish

 

 

 

 

Crazy school of unknown type of fish

 

 

 

 

Raccoon butterfly

 

 

 

The three in the middle are yellowfin goatfish.  The black with the white tail we haven’t been able to identify yet but they were extremely social; they basically seemed to accept us as part of their school and swam all around us almost constantly.

The white-tail swarm.

 

 

Tomato clownfish

 

 

 

 

 

Yellow fin surgeonfish

 

 

 

 

White-spotted puffer

 

 

 

 

This picture doesn’t look very impressive but these fish were probably 3-4 feet long and swam in a school of at least a hundred.  Don’t know what they were but they were incredible!

 

 

Parrotfish

 

 

 

 

 

White grunt

 

 

 

 

Just look at how amazingly clear the water is!  Words cannot describe how beautiful it was down there.  And the fish!!!  I’ve shown you maybe a quarter of the species that we saw.  Fish everywhere!  It was incredible. 

Wish you could have been there to see it for yourself.  I was thinking about all of you while I was down there and excited to share it with you even if only via this blog.  Hope you enjoyed the second-hand adventure and that you all had a great Thanksgiving as well!

Walking on Sunshine

Days two and three were spent on the beach or under the water.  I’ll give you the beach pictures first.

As nice as the picture is, it doesn’t begin to capture the incredible beauty of this place.  All the cliches were checked off: pure white sand, crystal-clear water, green hills dropping majestically into the sea.  Oh, and temperatures at the end of November which still made beach days possible.

You can’t pass up the opportunity for a family portrait in a place like this.

We built some sand castles, a sand turtle, and half-built a mermaid.  Logan was the giant storming the castle.

Naomi mostly slept.  Thanks for the hat Gaffneys!

My favorite seashell find.

Another interesting find while seashell hunting—apparently this is a baby Portugese man-of-war jellyfish.  I didn’t know what it was, snapped pictures of it because I thought it was pretty and then saw it labeled on a poster describing poisonous sea creatures.  Nice!

   Frolicking.

Rockin’ the wetsuits!

This is serious business—pure physics going on here.

Stunning, isn’t it?

I’m ready to go!  Is it my turn yet?

On a side note, Naomi is also a Japanese name; it means “honest beauty”.  Several of the hotel staff (who were exceedingly friendly and helpful but spoke about as much English as I speak Japanese) were cooing over her and got extremely excited when I told them her name.  They dubbed her “Naomi-chan” and passed her around.  I’m pretty sure they would have been glad to babysit if we had asked.

Logan made several friends as well.  Most of the time we had the entire beach to ourself, but at one point he found a seashell and (completely unprompted) gave it to a Danish lady.  Another time I caught him offering to share his Cheerios with an American woman.

There’s nothing like sunset over the ocean.

 <sigh of contentment>

As if that gorgeous beach weren’t enough, I’ve got this outrageously good-looking husband who is also a great dad! 

Happy Thanksgiving indeed!

Four Tickets to Paradise

Our Thanksgiving trip: Part One.  Yes, it was so fabulous that even though it was only three days, I still have to break it up into multiple blog posts.

A 70-minute ferry ride on Thursday morning took us out to Tokashiki Island, one of a group of islands called the Keramas, west of Okinawa.

The ferry had an area where passengers could lie down and sleep, complete with little box-pillows provided.  Logan tested it out; of course, he didn’t stay there for long.

Naomi also enjoyed the extra space to wiggle.  This being Japan, everyone’s shoes were removed before stepping onto the carpet area so it was really quite clean.

Logan got out to explore the boat.

Tokashiki Island on the horizon. It is about 6 miles long and 2 miles wide and almost the whole island is a national park/nature preserve.  There are only three tiny “villages” on the island: the port, a beach-side community, and our hotel area.

  A shuttle from the hotel picked us up at the port.  The driver stopped along the road so that we could get this scenic first glimpse of our hotel.

The rooms were not elegantly decorated, but frankly you don’t come here to stay in your hotel room.  I was pleased that our room had a third bed in it because it meant we didn’t have to make up a bed for Logan on the hard floor.

We lunched at the hotel right after arriving and then, while Logan and Jake napped, Naomi and I slipped out to the beach for some advance exploration.  What a cute little beach baby!

We found this dragon boat at some kind of youth center site just off the hotel property.

After Logan woke up from his nap, we decided to do a little further exploring.  The weather was a little iffy that first day, not the best for the beach, so we went hiking instead.

Of course, there was plenty of beauty to be seen along the way.

There were some magnificent views.

For example, this view from a lookout point, looking back towards Tokashiku Cove with our hotel on the far right hand side of the picture.

Of course we had to find a playground!  It had a REALLY long, but not particularly fast, rollerslide and a large play structure.

The sun sets on our first day on Tokashiki Island.  Although the weather was a little dreary that first day, it cleared right up for us the second and third days.

A foretaste of things to come!