Visiting Otsuki at end of March

[rblackburn]

Will be there somewhere in the 10-12 day range, visiting girlfriends sister... Looking to get away and get a dive in...

Suggestions? Operators? Sites?

Guess I should mention: Prefer easy dives as GF is only AOW, I am a Trimix Instructor & Tech Cave Instructor.

 

[The Mushroom King]

Can you confirm where you will be? if you mean the Ohtsuki that is near mt. fuji then its not too far from Izu where there is plenty of diving at all levels !!!

Maybe there is another otsuki I am unaware of.......

 

[rblackburn]

Can you confirm where you will be? if you mean the Ohtsuki that is near mt. fuji then its not too far from Izu where there is plenty of diving at all levels !!!

Maybe there is another otsuki I am unaware of.......

Pictures from their balcony show Mt Fuji in the background. From Her sister's blog:

I now live in Otsuki, or Otsuki-shi (‘shi’ means ‘city&#8217. The name of the town means ‘big moon’, which I find comforting. Before school started I had a couple days’ worth of assisted exploration of my new town. It contains about 30,000 people, but feels tiny and extremely sleepy.

For the most part, everything closes down around or earlier. But, Otsuki is an important junction between major train lines. It is from Otuski that the line leading to begins, so anyone going to Fuji-san from anyplace other than south of Otsuki has to stop here to get there. Therefore Otsuki Eki (train station) is an excellent place to set up shop.

 

[Route246]

My wife is from Otsuki-shi and there is no diving within at least three hours from there unless you want to go to the Fuji five lakes and look around that area.

Pictures from their balcony show Mt Fuji in the background. From Her sister's blog:

 

[The Mushroom King]

Yep, thats what I thought. By train, its 2 hours 30 min to Atami, likely the closest spot for diving and a pretty good one. Its 2-3 hours to the same point from Tokyo, so its pretty normal for us to travel that far. About right for a day trip, if you want to stay a few days you can head farther south where the diving is even better. If you can spare at least a day, you should definitly head out for a few dives!
There are a few japanese operators who speak english... and a few foreign run ops (but mostly on weekends)

 

[Geoff_H]

I'm afraid I don't know of any nearby good diving places to recommend. There are beautiful lakes around Mt Fuji but I wouldn't recommend diving in them unless mud and rocks are your thing. I did it once and I won't be doing it again... the lack of vegetation and fish means it is really a dive for divings sake rather than to see pretty things.

Although - on the map - you look close to the diving hotspot of Izu, you seem to have go almost all the way to Yokohama and back down to get there on a train, due to having this large thing called Mt Fuji in the way.

Tokyo to Atami is 50 minutes on the bullet train, I would recommend you to do that as a daytrip if you plan to stay in Tokyo while you are here. Otherwise you're going to be looking at a 6am departure from Otsuki to get to Atami diveshop for 9am with 3 station changes.. not so fun on holiday!

If you're really keen to dive, I would recommend you rent a car and spend 2 or 3 days driving in and around that area... it's an extremely pretty area and the views are stunning at the moment - I can see the 60 miles to Mt Fuji from my office window in Tokyo. Car rental will set you back about around 60 USD a day.