Day Trip to Zamami Island (July 2011)

Chris, Mike, Temi and I decided that it would be a fun to take a day trip out to Tokashiki Island, one of the Kerama Islands about 35 miles off the coast of Okinawa. Here's how it usually works...30 min drive down to the Naha port (main ferry terminal on the island), pay for a round trip ferry ride, and off you go on the hour ferry ride out to the island! Um, well...not the day we picked to go!! The ferry was full!! Even our friends that are local Okinawans said that you usually don't need reservations. So we were directed to another ferry line for the island Zamami...also one of the Kerama Islands, but a 2 hour ferry ride away. We decided to do it...even though the round trip ferry ride would end up being longer than the amount of time we were able to spend on the island. We were in for a treat :)

On the ferry

Caution: Crazy clouds ahead...

 I've never seen the weather change SO fast. It was sunny, then it would pour. Sunny. Pour. Repeat...

Hmmm...

Temi

フェリーザマミ = Ferry Zamami

Pouring...................Sunny!










Once we got to Zamami, we only had about 3 1/2 hrs to enjoy what we found out was complete paradise! :)

Chris was obviously REALLY excited

So up ahead is a sign in Japanese that says レンタルバイク, which means rental bike. We thought we could rent scooters, but turns out we couldn't on Zamami Island. So off we went...walking to the beach. 

We're not really sure how far it was, but we took some random roads, climbed a hill and snapped a few photos along the way.

The guy on the scooter is helping the girl on the bike to get up the hill. It was a fiasco...but hilarious!

Temi...trying to balance his camera on a tree to take a photo of all of us :)

When we reached the end of the road, we were absolutely blown away by the beautiful ocean! This picture does no justice...so you have to imagine walking along a road and then bam!, there's a path to this gorgeous beach! This was the first turn towards the water... and after that, we were like 5 year olds for the next 2 hours :)

Playing in the water...

Temi

It's such a beautiful blue!!! 

Happiness

Rediculousness...

Mike enjoying the ocean

This made me laugh because this is how the world looks to an 11D myope... thanks waterproof camera for capturing my view :)

So then we decided that we wanted to 'ride the waves'. After looking around, the best we could find was a crate!! So it was more like tipping over in the waves :)

Best action shot of the day thanks to Mike!!

Temi. He didn't want to skimp on the sunblock. 

This one's for Emma... it's all about the T-shirt :) Miss you Emmz!

The Okinawans use these brooms for every type of sweeping!

We had gorgeous weather for about 2 hours until the skies opened up again. We found a little 'hut bar' and stopped in for a beer.

And that was about all we could fit into our short trip to Zamami...it was paradise in 3 hours :)












Some pics from the ferry ride home...

Cashed out...