okinawa dive center
Dive Shop Bluefield

Hi everyone,

Today, we enjoyed whale shark diving, and some goood dives at the Zampa point.

***Today’s Okinawa Dive Site Info***
Okinawa West Coast

1. Whale Shark Dive
2. Nagahama (Okinawa)
3. Kori Zampa

Objective: Fun Dives
Weather: Mild North Wind
Air: 22C (71.6F)
Water: 22C (71.6F)
Visibility: 25m (82ft.)
Suits: 5mm one piece + hood

Our first dive today was whale shark dive, and we headed to Nagahama for some coral and shrimp goby photo diving.
The third dive of today was at Kori Zampa – the coast line around Cape Zampa formed spectaclar underwater landscape.
Please take a look at the picture above. Isn’t it beautiful?

We also spotted many many kinds of nudibranchs today.
The picture on the right is a very rare one.

The summer is around the corner in Okinawa!

Miho

Hello, it’s Miho here.

We took Dawn and Bobby out diving at the Kerama Islands today.
We saw some very interesting stuff in the sea, as below…

The first one on the left is a picture of nudibranch eggs. It’s a season now when nudibranchs mate and lay eggs in Okinawa.
The picture on the right is a scene where one nudibranch is eating the other one.
The one on the front with blue and green color is called “Tambja morosa – Midori Ryugu Umiushi”, which is being eaten by “Roboastra luteolineolata” – Ishigaki Ryugu Umiushi.
Isn’t this cool?

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

1. Kuroshima South (Kuroshima Island)
2. Toma West (Zamami Island)
3. Tamana Farm (Gishippu Island)

Objective: Fun Dives
Weather: Mild North Wind
Air: 22C (71.6F)
Water: 22C (71.6F)
Visibility: 25m (82ft.)
Suits: 5mm one piece + hood

At the Tamana Farm, we enjoyed watching and taking pictures of green sea turtles, as always.

In Winter here, you often see big cuttle fish in Okinawa.
They are here to mate and lay eggs!
If you see them doing it, don’t bother, just take pictures!??

Even when they are hanging out by themselves, they change their body color according to their mood – interesting to watch it!

They lay eggs in between staghorn coral.

You can see their round white eggs in the picture above.
When we go diving, we make sure to tell you if it’s a dive site to watch cuttlefish, then be sure to peek into the coral reef. You will find their eggs.

Hi everyone,

We made some special dive packages for those who are coming here with buddy.
Dive more while saving money!

All the dive packages have various dive spots including Kerama Islands and Okinawa West Coast.
Those are very nice to explore all around the Okinawa dive sites.

Please click the following link to take a look at the packages.

Bring Your Buddy Special Dive Packages

It’s a limited offer, so don’t miss it!

Miho

Hi it’s Miho here.

Today was the second day of diving with Steve shooting photos.
I had Steve and Hiroko in my dive team – enjoying all around the dive spots at Kuroshima North Bay. My favorite dive sites!

The best shot today was by Steve!
It’s a Wobbegon Shark or Flinge Shark that he spotted. This kind is a rare one in Okinawa.

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

1. Twin Rocks (Kuroshima Island)
2. Hija Bay (Kuroshima Island)
3. Kadena Fish House (Okinawa Main Island)

Objective: Fun Dives
Weather: Mild South Wind
Air: 26C (79F)
Water: 22C (71.6F)
Visibility: 25m (82ft.)
Suits: 5mm one piece + hood

We swam around the Twin Rocks – it was wonderful!
There weren’t currents, which made our dive easy. Many many fish! Fusiliers, Orange Basslets, Purple Queens, Schooling Banner Fish, Butterfly Fish… There wre countless fish swimming around.

We saw two cuttle fish probably mating, and their eggs at Hija Bay.
Lots of stuff to take pictures here… Yellow Spotted Scorpion Fish and Coral Crabs are hiding in the coral called Pocillopora damicornis.

Hi it’s Miho here.

Today, we had mild weather with south wind and calm (enough) sea – had a good day of diving in the Kerama Islands!
The picture below was taken at a dive site called Ariga Cable, by Tokashiki Island.

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

1. Nozaki (Tokashiki Island)
2. Toma West (Zamami Island)
3. Ariga Cable (Tokashiki Island)

Objective: Fun Dives
Weather: Mild South Wind
Air: 24C (75.2F)
Water: 22C (71.6F)
Visibility: 25m (82ft.)
Suits: 5mm one piece + hood

The first dive site, Nozaki had good currents!
We had so much fun swimming around the huge reef with staghorn coral.
Literally, there are thousands of fish- blue chromis, purple queen, Yello-spotted chromis, and much more!

At Toma, we enjoyed taking pictures of Pink Leaf Fish, Garden Eels, and some shrimps!
Ariga Cable was a lot of fun chasing groupers and lion fish.
There were some Clerk’s Anemone Fish having eggs.

The last picture today is – two Red Sea Turtles mating.
I hope our boat did not scare then too much!

Winter in Okinawa is the nudibranch season.
We have been seeing many kinds recently.
Blue, Pink, Yellow, White, dots, lines… their unique color and pattern on their body always attracts our eyes.

Here are some photos that Naoki took from today’s dives at Labyrinth (Kamiyama Island) and Kadena North.

Here is another one from Masaaki Harada.

Hi everyone, it’s Miho again.

Today was the second day of the dive guides’ safty training.

1. Reef Currents – Prevention of snorkelers’ accidents (Okinawa Coast Guards)
2. Learning fron Dive Accidents’ Deaths (Ryukyu University Medical School)
3. Reading the Weather – Winds and Swells, Seasonal Changes (Okinawa Weather Forcast)
4. Water Risk Management (Life Guard Association)

It was interesting to learn again the mechanisms of the weather – especially how the wind starts blowing, how the wind direction changes, and how it affects the real live dive site conditions.
March is the season when the wind direction changes. It is not unusual to have sudden bad weather when you come up to the surface after the dive. We always try our best to predict the weather condition, think and plan ahead, and choose the safest option. We never take a chance and risk our divers’ lives.

The lecture by the anatomist was interesting yet scary.
The main points were again, about how the risk increases as you have heart related disease, raspitorary problms, and so on – what was scary is that many divers tells a small lies to themselves when they are signing the paperworks before participating to dive trips.
If you ask 300 random non-divers in their 40 or 50, 95% answers at least one YES to the medical questionnaire, while only 0.03 % out of 300 divers did.
You may say that it was because most of the divers are in a good shape – it is possible. However, it is scary for us, dive guides, if they are telling a small lie, because they think it’s not a big deal, and because they want to go diving.

Let’s never take a risk, when you go diving.
You go diving to have fun, not to risk your life – safety is not taken for granted if you are not in a good health condition.

It was good to have two days off from dive work and participated to this seminar. Safety is our motto, but brushing up our memories and skills is very important – because we never really have a chance to put rescue skills into practice, luckily!
I’m looking forward to having safety training with coast guard ships and helicopters.

Miho

Hi Miho’s here.

I participated to our annual 2-Days safety training sessions for dive guides working in Okinawa.
The seminar was organized by Ryukyu Water Safety Association, and we had instructors from various background- from Okinawa Coast Guards, NPO Okinawa Dive Safety Association, Fire Station Rescue Team, Ryukyu University Medical School, Okinawa Weather Report Association, and Life Guard Association.

Today’s lecture:
1. Overview of Dive Accidents happened in Okinawa in 2009 (Okinawa Coast Guards)
2. What We Can Do to Prevent Dive Accidents – Safety Standards Proposal (NPO Okinawa Dive Safety Association)
3. CPR Lessons for Dive Guides

We examined the recent dive accidents and needed to conclude that most of the accidents especially the ones with death involved divers from middle age to seniors – specifically the ones in40-60.
The risk of having hyperlipemia, diabetes, hypertension increases as you age. Furthermore, when you get in the water, dive down, having water pressure on your body, the risk doubles, or even more.
Daily excersices can minimize the risk, good diet of course… taking good care of your body can promise enjoyable dive experience and further ensure long, happy dive life.

Personally, I love diving with divers around my parents’ age like – hearing old time stories about diving all around the world is so much fun! However, you need to be in a good shape for having fun in the water!

Please take a look at the medical questionnaire here.
If you have any questions which you consider answering Yes, or you wonder, you need to think well before going out diving.

PADI Medical Questionnaire

Today, we practiced CPR techniques again and again, spending three hours.
We did it so many times using the poor doll, we started swetting at the end.

Main Points:
1. Daily Care for your Health is important especially as you get old
2. Final Health Check in the morning is crucial
3. Always have O2 kit at the site
4. Brush up your CPR skill often – you never know when you actually need to perform it!

Hi everyone, it’s Miho here.

Today, I went out diving with Tien from Singapore for some dives in the Keramas. Noboru- yesterday’s hero – took two divers with him.

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

1. Akaya – Coral Garden (Gishippu Island)
2. Kamigu (Gishippu Island)
3. Hija Bay (Kuroshima Island)

Objective: Fun Dives
Weather: Mild North Wind
Air: 24C (75.2F)
Water: 22C (71.6F)
Visibility: 15m (45ft.)
Suits: 5mm one piece + hood

After enjoying swimming around the reef with lots of purple queen, damsel fish, and longfin batfish, we saw a huge green sea turtle!

Also, we saw some cuttle fish and lots of eggs of them.
It’s a season now when they lay eggs – it takes about 3-4 weeks for them to hatch out.

We loved going through the small swimthrus at the Hija Bay – the shark was out tough.
There were many blenny and crabs hiding in the small coral heads as well.