okinawa dive center
Dive Shop Bluefield

Akira enjoyed a macro photo dives with a diver who just got her nice new macro lens.

This is her trying to take a picture of a pipe fish.

They dove Maeda and Yamada in Onna Village in the afternoon.

Naoji dove with two divers who are getting Advanced Open Water certified.

They worked on their buoyancy control taking PPB (Peak Performance Buoyancy) class.
Having a good control over your buoyancy is important in doing anything in the water. Taking pictures, observing sea animals closely, doing deep dives, and drift dives …..

The worked on learning fish identification techniques as well.
We have various fish and sea animals here in Okinawa – it’s fun to be able to identify them and recognize them.

Hi it’s Miho here.

Today, after enjoying a dive at Inanbishi, we went diving with the whale sharks. It was very sunny and warm weather today- just like summer!

*** Today’s Dives ***
Okinawa Main Island

1. Inanbishi
2. Whale Shark Dive

Objective: Fun Dives
Weather: A bit of swells
Air: 23C (73.4F)
Water: 21C (69.8F)
Suits: 5mm one piece + hood

Poor Noboru needed to act a victim for Rescue Diver Training course all day long today.
He and his student practiced towing the diver, all the surface skills, and actually getting the diver on the boat.
Since we have our own dive boat, it is easy for us to have the various certification courses boat diving. In the actual situation, you may need to exit with your unconscious buddy (hopefully not), to the boat. So it’s a very important skill – though a touch one.

After finishing up the course, they enjoyed fun diving at the Zampa area – Bolo Point.
Look at the huge cliff – you have the same kind of landscape in the water as well, which makes the dive spot very interesting.

Noboru had a Rescue Diver student today – they went to a swimming/dive training pool to practice the basic rescue skills.

Let me introduce where we always have confined water sessions (shallow water training for beginners or rescue diver students).

This pool has shallow area and deeper area, where we can practice various skills.
Today, Noboru and the student practiced self rescue skills, how to help your buddy (sharing air, helping unconscious diver to the surface).
At the end, the student needed to get Noboru out of the water, and practiced giving rescue breathes.

We always have Oxygen Bottles available in our boats and all the dive vans. They practiced assembling it and giving it to the victim.

Unfortunately, it is not always the case in Japan that all the divers or dive centers carry the O2 bottles, however, we always have it available wherever we go diving.

Today, we went to dive the dive spots around our local area – Kedena.
It was the second day for John, visiting from Australia.

*** Today’s Dives ***
Okinawa Main Island

1. Inanbishi
2. Green Marker
3. Red Marker

Objective: Fun Dives
Weather: A bit of swells
Air: 19C (66.2F)
Water: 21C (69.8F)
Suits: 5mm one piece + hood

While exploring Inanbishi, we saw a huge fish called ‘Ara Mibai’ in Okinawan Dialeft – Malabar Grouper.
We swing by around pygmy seahorse, checked out the goby area.

The reef around the green marker is beautiful as always, we saw crown fish, orangutan crabs, and some cowries mating.
This is the area where American Ships approached to Okinawa Main Island during the WWII, so we can still find some underwater explosives. You may find some coke bottles with the year of 1945 marked.

Hello everyone,

The cherry blossoms are in full bloom now in Okinawa!
Unlike the cherry blossoms in mainland Japan, the ones in Okinawa starts blooming in the end of January and continues until the middle of February.

The kinds of cherry blossoms we can commonly see in mainland Japan in March and April are called Someiyoshino and the flowers have a little more pale color.
The ones we see in Okinawa is called Hikanzakura – which has more deep red pink color on it.

We have some Cherry Blossoms Festivals in Okinawa in this season.

Mt. Yaedake Cherry Blossoms Festival (Motobu Town)
0980-47-2702

Nakijin Catsle Cherry Blossoms Festival (Nakijin Village)
0980-56-2256

Nago Cherry Blossoms Festival (Nago City)
0980-53-7755

Naha Cherry Blossoms Festival (Naha City)
098-855-2552

Yaese Cherry Blossoms Festival (Yaese Town)
098-998-4624

For more information, please visit
Okinawa Convention Visitors Bureau Webpage

Okinawa in Feburary
Wind: Mostly North
Air Temperature: between 15-21 C (59-70F)
Water Temperature: 21C (70 F)
Cloth: Long sleeve shirts + Jacket
Wetsuits: 5mm full suits + Hood Vest

Photos by Jim Winter

Today, we had two girls from Korea, trying scuba diving for the first time.

It was a bit cold day, but we enjoyed two dives around the Kadena area.

*** Today’s Dives ***
Okinawa Main Island

1. Inanbishi
2. Marina 225

Objective: Discover Scuba Diving
Weather: A bit of swells
Air: 16C (60.8F)
Water: 21C (69.8F)
Suits: 5mm one piece + hood

The visibility was very good in the water – we enjoyed swimming around the great soft coral reef and watch the anemone fish colony. Also, many fusiliers came as a huge school at the second dive site.

Hi Miho’s here.
Today, I took two divers for Whale Shrak Dives in Yomitan.

*** Today’s Dives ***
Whale Shark Dives

1. Yomitan Whale Shark

Objective: Discover Scuba Diving
Weather: A bit of swells
Air: 16C (60.8F)
Water: 21C (69.8F)
Suits: 5mm one piece + hood

It was a bit rough offshore around the Whale Shark Point, but we enjoyed the diving.
Today’s divers are from Tokyo area – a cute couple.
The wife, a very cute lady, wanted to try scuba diving and see whale sharks, but couldn’t for a long time, because of the surgery that she had 5 years ago. However, this time she and her husband tried Discover Scuba Diving in a shallow water to peek in the net where the two whale sharks live.

I was glad they had good time- their dream of seeing a whale shark came true today.

As a committee of NPO Okinawa Dive Safety Association, we always participate or organize dive staff training.

The other day, we had a boat training workshop with many other instructors, dive masters, and dive shop owners on the Okinawa Main Island.

Noboru, our captain and chief instructor, taught the workshop.

The workshop covered various aspects of boat dive operations.
- Judging the weather / actual ocean condition
- Dive Site Conditions – Wind, Swells, Currents, Tital changes
-Rope Works
-Anchoring the boat
-What Boat captain can / cannot see
-The Role of Boat Crew

All the issues are what we must know to prevent dive accidents and operate our boat dive tours safely.
This time was only sit-in class style workshop, but we will have another day on the boat doing the rest of the workshop soon.