okinawa dive center
Dive Shop Bluefield

Okinawa is located all the way south of Japanese Islands, just like Hawaii. Each of the islands in Okinawa has been attracting divers from all around the world with its beautiful coral reefs and a variety of sea life.

The Kerama Islands and the Okinawa main island where we operate our dive trips, boast world class reef and underwater landscapes with countless dive sites. Please go to our TOP PAGE to enter our main website.

Our Latest Seasonal Dive Information 2010
August: Caves are Filled with Baby Fish! NEW!
July: Diving the Caves – Okinawa’s Summer! (7/1/2010) NEW!
Jule-July: Schools of Bigeye Travelly in Aguni Island (6/18/2010) NEW!
June: Coral Eggs Hatching (6/12/2010)
June: Baby Season in the Okinawa’s Sea (6/1/2010)
May: It’s the time of the year- Coral Having Eggs (5/26/2010)
May: Some Underwater Photos by Masaaki Harada (5/13/2010)
April: Nudibranch Photos by Mike Jimenez (4/24/2010)
April: Anemonefish Laying Eggs (4/5/2010)

For our daily Dive Log, please scroll down below this section.

Photos by Michael Jimenez, Jim Winter, and Masaaki Harada

In Summer, on the calm mild weather day, we get to dive the various dive sites in Okinawa.
Yamada, is one of them, where we have so many ‘interesting’ creatures that live in the Sandy bottom area of the ocean.
I would like to introduce amaing macro photos by Dr. Klaus Stiefel here from our dives last year.

The one above is a Snake Eel. We can find at least one for you.

This is a Messmate Pipefish. About 10cm big.
The one below is the eyes of a Flounder.

Alright, for this, you need to dive the same place many many times to find them, or, you need to have good friends to share latest information about the unique sea creatures.
Can you tell that it has eggs?

The pair of Ghoast Pipefish have been hanging out there for a while.

Here is a close-up photo of ‘funny face’ Giant Frogfish.

Wanna see some cool stuff with us?
Sign up for 2 days/ 3 days dive package with Bluefield!
Make sure to bring your Macro Lenses with you.

Okinawa in September
Wind: South
Air Temperature: between 30-32 C (86-90F)
Water Temperature: 29C (85 F)
Cloth: T-shirts, no sleeves, tanktops, shorts
Wetsuits: 3mm / 5mm full suits or shorties

We occasionally have typhoons.
When we have typhoons, we directions change a lot. With the strong South wind from approaching typhoons, we have many chance to dive Yamada in this season.

All photos by Dr. Klaus Stiefel (2009)

Hi there,

We (Akira, Yuto, Saori, and me) had many dive teams on our boat!
Took Swift out to the Kerama Islands as always, and enjoyed 3 dives there.

***Today’s Okinawa Diving Information**
Kerama Islands

1. Sand Triangle (Gishippu Island)
2. Turtle Reef (Gishippu Island)
3. Light House (Zamami Island)

(See the Kerama Island Map)

Objective: Boat Dives
Weather: Strong South Wind
Air: 30C (86F)
Water: 28C (82F)
Visibility: 20m+ (70ft.)
Suits: 3mm / 5mm one piece

We visited Turtle Reef today!
Not only enjoying the turtles, we found macro creatures as well.
There are many sea fans and feather star sover there, where  shrimps and pigmy hide themselves.

Interesting stuff we saw:
Pigmy Seahorse
Crinoid Shrimp
Juvenile Red-spotted Parrotfish
Hypselodoris bullocki (Nudibranch)

It was Terry and Erik’s last day of diving in Okinawa.
Very sad to see Uncle Terry leaving Okinawa…..

Thank you very much for showing up your smiley face on weekends – although I was the only one who speaks English (and all the guys here are a bit shy to talk to you in English), everybody loved to have you all the time, Terry!

I will miss you so much – hope to see you in the states or here.
-probably here, then we can go diving again together!

Love,
Miho & Bluefield Stuff

Hi everyone,

Since the wind calmed down alot, we went out for the Kerama Island dive tour.
Here are some photos of turtles and sharks, by Naoji.

***Today’s Okinawa Dive Site Info**
Kerama Islands

1. Tamana Farm
2. Kamigu
3. Chishi

Objective: Boat Dives
Weather: South West Wind
Air: 30C (86F)
Water: 28C (82F)
Visibility: 30m + (100ft)
Suits: 3mm / 5mm one piece

Today, we had good dives at Zampa area.

With the strong wind from South, we chose to dive the Zampa area, because it’s all protected from the wind, has a variety of dive site just like Kerama Islands, and have dynamic seascapes.

***Today’s Okinawa Diving Information**
Zampa (Okinawa West Coast)

1. Bolo Point
2. Nagahama
3. Mishiragi

(See the Okinawa Dive Site Map)

Objective: Boat Dives
Weather: Strong South Wind
Air: 30C (86F)
Water: 28C (82F)
Visibility: 20m+ (70ft.)
Suits: 3mm / 5mm one piece

Bolo Point is our favorite – we just dove the same dive site last weekend, but depending on where we anchor the boat, this dive spot has totally different view.
Swimthrus, caves, and drop-off.
Lots of colorful fish. Fire dartfish, Octopus….
Saori found a cute Leaf Fish over there as well.

I think these caves are better than Blue Cave at Maeda.
We had very good visibility too.

Nagahama, we found some cool nudibranch, banded coral shrimps, and lots of anemonefish.

For these dives, as both maximum depth and average depth get deeper than other dive sites, it’s nice to dive with Enriched Air (Nitrox).

It’s summer now!
The ocean is full of baby fish everywhere!!

Especially, the caves we always go in this season are filled with schools of fish now.

The above picture is from the Chishi Blue Cave, there are two schools now – one is Arrow Cardinals, and other is consisted of baby Sweepers.
The picture on the lef was taken at Maeda Blue Cave – it’s a school of baby Rabbitfish.

Altough each fish is so small (Arrow Cardinals and baby Rabbitfish in the pictures are about 1 inch), when they make a school, they make a specutaclar scene in the water!

The picture below was taken at Misgiragi Point in the Zampa area on Okinawa West Coast.
Once a year, in this season, they come gather at around the same rock (always the same rock), to mate.
Millions of Surgeon Fish.

Okinawa in August
Wind: South
Air Temperature: between 30-34C (86-93F)
Water Temperature: 29C (85 F)
Cloth: T-shirts, no sleeves, tank tops, shorts
Wetsuits: 3mm / 5mm full suits or shorties

Hello there!

We had an Hiroe & Toshi’s Underwater Wedding!
It was a very fun, hard, and happy day of diving.
We used our new boat, B-FLAP for this charter!
There are lots of stories to make this happen, which I cannot tell you all here – just ask me in between diving here…

Here are beautiful underwater photos taken by Jim Winter.
Compared to most of the underwater wedding photos taken before, his photos are alot better, turned out to be more beautiful than we thought. Having the bride wearing the long white dress in the water was tricky, but the buoyancy and her dive skills worked out just right!

We did lots of practice before and rehearsals. Because of that, Toshi manage to swim with Hiroe by themselves (i.e. towing her – because she cannot kick with her long dress!)

Well, here are some photos from our Rehesal.

They were very happy to have Lindy to officiate the ceremony, and have Jim taking pictures… for that we always envy them for being a such a great couple!

Now, we have all the guests lined up for the ceremony.
Believe or not, one of them got certified just a couple days ago with Yuto, here. She is afraid to do a giant stride entry, because she as scared of water as much as she is scared of shower.
On top of that, we had three guests who had never dived before this day too!

And of course… Here it goes…
Lindy said that their kiss was longer in the rehesal session!

Happy wedding!
After everything, we celebrated their exit to the boat, with Shampagne shower!
I was taking the bride and groom with me – it was very nice and weired to smell shampagne when we were still half in the sea water! Well, of course, Toshi needed to taste it!

We all wish the best for Hiroe & Toshi’s new stage of their journey!

Miho

Hi everyone,

We enjoyed very good diving in the Kerama Islands as always.

***Today’s Okinawa Dive Site Info**
Kerama Islands

1. Chishi (Zamami Island)
2. Chishi Pinnacle (Zamami Island)
3. Kamigu (Gishippu Island)

Objective: Boat Dives
Weather: Mild South Wind
Air: 30C (86F)
Water: 28C (82F)
Visibility: 30m + (100ft)
Suits: 3mm / 5mm one piece

The visibility was fantastic!
The pinnacle at the corner of Chishi has many many fish, including Yellow-spotted Chromis, Butterfly Fish… and Anthies.

Enjoyed the swimthrus, dynamic landscapes around the pinnacle.

At Kamigu, I took Hiroe and Toshi to take a look at Skelton Shrimps.
They are soooo small, but very fun to watch.

Miho

July in Okinawa is the beginning of a very hot hot summer!

The ocean conditions are relatively calm with mild South wind, which allows us to dive the dive sites with spectaclar underwater landscapes.
There are many ‘Caves’ that we can take you to, around both Kerama Islands and Okinawa West Coast.

The above underwater picture on the left is from a dive site called ‘Horse Shoe’ on Okinawa West Coast.
There are many swimthrus and small caves that you can peek into. Bigeye Soldierfish and sweepers are hanging out there.

The picture on the right is from ‘Chishi Blue Cave’ in the Kerama Islands.
It’s big enough that a group of divers can enjoy without worrying about kicking each other.

:: Caves and Holes in Okinawa Dive Sites::

1. For Very Advanced Divers
*Deep and narrow holes. Real ‘overhead’ environment. For safety reasons, we only take you on your second day or later in your dive trip. You certainly need dive lights.
- Manza Dream Hole (Okinawa West Coast)
- Overhead Rocks (Okinawa West Coast)
- Cape Zampa (Okinawa West Coast)
- Tokashiki No.2 (Kerama Islands)

2. For Intermediate Divers
*Not so deep, and it’s not really a complete overhead environment.
- Chishi Blue Cave (Kerama Islands)
- Labyrinth (Kerama Islands)
- Horse Shoe (Okinawa West Coast)
- Kouri Zampa (Okinawa West Coast)
- Bolo Point (Okinawa West Coast)

3. For Beginner Divers
*Easy dives. Maeda is even accessible for non-divers, since you can surface in the cave, and it’s open air.
- Maeda Blue Cave (Okinawa West Coast)

We got our second boat!

This boat, B-FLAP arrived in April, and started taking customers out from the Golden Week in May.

Certified for 20 passangers, but we only put 10 divers maximum.

Having B-FLAP, now we can devide divers into two groups.
B-FLAP will carry only advanced divers and enjoy a full day of drift dives, or, depending on a day she will be chartered by a group of snorkelers.

Facilities:
Cabin, 2 Showers (warm & cold water), Bathroom, Tank Holders, Side Curtains

Entry to the water:
Giant Stride Entry from the back
Back Roll Entry from the side

Areas of Operation:
Zampa area, Kadena & Chatan
Special Dive Trips to Aguni & Tonaki
Kerama Islands

Here is a photo from the Golden Week.
I took my family and friends, and Takeshi took a group of divers from Tokyo on B-FLAP.
Having the upper deck, large space on the back, it was a comfortable ride for 10 divers.

You can charter B-FLAP too!
The price can be negotiated from ‘Half-day’ price to ‘Full-Day Charter’, with the dive fee on top of that.

Thinking about just chartering the boat for your family for snorkeling?
We can accommodate various requests with this boat.

We just had an Underwater Wedding Charter in July!

Miho