Onna, Okinawa. Moon Beach and Snorkeling at Cape Maeda in the East China Sea.
I didn’t get to bed until around midnight, but slept well until around 6 or so. Glorious day out. Today, we’ll figure out what’s what.
First, a few shots of the hotel and views of the immediate area.
We started out the day by visiting Moon Beach, the beach immediately behind Pension Moon Villa, with the polar opposite gigantic luxury Moon Hotel right on the beach, although the beach is public. This is shoulder season in Okinawa, leading to “Golden Week” near the end of the month and into early May, which marks the beginning of tourist season and sees a flood of domestic tourists coming into the area, with crowded beaches and hotels. Today, however, the beaches, and there are beaches all along the coastal area of Onna, were pretty empty, although the weather was beautiful, as are the finely sanded white-yellow and tropical tree and plant lined beaches, sitting on the East China Sea. Fabulous. A paradise.
After spending a little time on the beach, we took an ambling walk north for a couple of miles, along the beach line to our west, hoping to maybe find some tourist information and maybe a local bus station, but we found neither, although we did eventually figure out where the bus stops are, and their timetables.
The road in both directions has large resort hotels, although not built up the way I’ve seen them in many other sea resort towns, but nevertheless they’re everywhere, in contrast to the town itself, which is a small and generally unassuming rural village, and inexpensive non-resort hotels like ours. The Moon Hotel, for instance, literally right next to and surrounding our small hotel, is gigantic with multiple pools, groomed grounds, and a vast and beautifully designed interiors, sitting directly on the beach.
It was getting hot, and Laurence was slowing down a bit, especially in this weather, and it’s far more humid here than on the mainland, 1000 miles north of here. It also became clear we are pretty much limited to this area, with few options for day trips, as you really do need a car here, which s the reason I booked one in the first place.
We wound up deciding to take a visit to the Churaumi Aquarium tomorrow, which is part of Ocean Expo Park on the Motobu Peninsula in Honto, about an hour north (although only 38 miles), and can take a bus from near our hotel. It’s not something that was part our original plan of driving the island by car, and we would to have otherwise done, but will hopefully prove a nice day. I’m sure it will, actually.
After we got back to Moon Villa, Laurence decided to stick around and rest up, as by then we had walked several miles in this hot and somewhat weather, but I decided to go to Cape Maeda, about 4 miles north of Onna, and snorkel. I visited a dive center on the main road here in the Maeganeku district of Onna, minutes from the hotel, and rented a mask, snorkel, and set of fins for less than $10 for the day (although by now it was maybe 1:30), and, even better, caught a ride to the dive area at Cape Maeda from one of their staff. I was actually at the dive shop for maybe 30-40 minutes waiting for him to return to the shop, and then get ready for a dive tour he has tomorrow, and while waiting I really enjoyed talking to the manager of the dive shop, Dorca, who is from is from Hungary and speaks perfect English.
Dorca was really helpful, initially telling me how to get to Cape Maeda by bus, before offering me a ride with one of her staff, and then we talked more generally for a while. I had to smile when she asked me whether I had a smartphone, and when I said I did, whether I knew how to use one for maps. She saw me smile, and said she knew not everyone my age, like her own grandfather, knew how to use them. I wanted to say, I may look like a grandad on the outside, but on the inside I’m not, One thing that has been especially apparent on this trip so far is that we both look like old guys, which is what we are, despite not feeling that way on the inside.
I caught a ride with George, who’s from Sheffield in England, and enjoyed talking with him also. He’s planning to live here for a year until his work permit expires and then return to England for an intense coure so he can became a scientific and salvage diver in the Antarctic. When he told me he had spent a summer in Pennsylvania, I knew he had been a summer camp counselor there, in the Poconos, just as I had been when I first came to the U.S. Between Mexico a few weeks back and now Japan, I’ve seen many young people who are leading very different and uncommon lives involving travel and work abroad, and sometimes in pretty exotic places (like Onna). At the hotel yesterday, I was talking to a young guy who’s been traveling extensively and non-stop with his wife for the past year or more,and for the past couple of months in Turkey and across Asia with their now 3-month old daughter. Imagine traveling with a newly born infant, and I saw a number of hiker couples in the Mount Fuji area traveling with very young children. Great stuff, and much credit to them.
The dive area at Cape Maeda was a small complex, with lockers and showers, as well as some stores, and is a major spot for both snorkeling and scuba diving, with many individual divers and small tour groups heading into the water, as well as a number of small dive boats in the water carrying scuba divers and snorkelers.The trip down to the sea line was tricky, down an increasingly rocky set of wet stairs and a very rocky and slippery area as you enter the water. It would be very easy to slip here. I donned my fins and mask, and got into the warm water, with small but strong waves pushing against you as the tide was coming in. It was a bit of a thrill to realize I was swimming in the East China Sea.
The snorkeling was fun, but definitely tested my limits, especially as you have to work your way out, swimming against the waves and into deeper water away from the shore line. It would be easier to get into the already deeper water from a boat. Nevertheless, it was very easy, almost immediately, to see tropical reef fish of all types just below the surface, and I wish I could have taken some photos. None were too brightly colored, but I did see fish of all colors and stripes. I never made it to the Blue Cave, partly because I couldn’t tell where it was, and partly and significantly because I wasn’t sure I could contend with the swimming that would be involved, and particularly inside a cave. As it was, I was getting pushed all over the place by the waves, and then one of my fins unbuckled, and I just couldn’t re-buckle it with the waves continually pushing against me. I was afraid I’d lose the damn thing, and was holding it onto my foot with one hand. At that point, after maybe 30 minutes in the water, I decided to swim back, initially to re-fasten the fin, but then I realized how tired I was from the swimming I had done. Other than a brief swim when in Mazunte, Mexico in February 2025, I haven’t been swimming in I don’t know how many years, let alone snorkeling. It was tiring. And being tired and in the ocean is probably not a good thing.
I climbed back up the steps, showered, and dried off, and left my swim shorts, towel, and gear in the sun to dry and walked some of the dense vegetation lined trails (with snake warnings) overlooking the sea. Beauty.
I walked a little less than a mile to the local bus stop, figured out the timetable, and waited about 50 minutes for the next bus into town, arriving back around 5-ish, and returned my gear to the dive shop, and said goodbye to Dorca. Then back to the hotel, minutes away, where I met up with Laurence, and pretty tired from the swimming took a sound nap (unusual for me), falling asleep very quickly, for about 90 minutes.
Laurence had eaten by then, and we took another short walk into town as dusk descended and it was getting dark. The streets are lined with small restaurants, some smaller than others, and all of which look good, and all filled with customers. Then back to Moon Villa, where Laurence went to sleep by 8, and I wrote this blog (and still am).
It was good day, and I’m very glad to have snorkeled, and in the East China Sea of all places! Tomorrow we’ll head out at around 8 for the aquarium and park.