Thanks! Of course you are absolutely correct! I remembered the name incorrectly... thanks for correcting it! Yokobama point... and now that I think of it as being the same as Yokohama it will help me remember it.
So this last weekend I went buddy diving in Osezaki. I have to say that If I didn't speak a little Japanese and if my dive buddy wasn't fluent in Japanese it would have been very difficult. Here is a Japanese langauge guide to diving in Osezaki.
We didn't really understand how it works down there so we called down and tried to make a reservation at the Osekan but they said they were full for the weekend and we couldn't stay there. I didn't understand that there are dive shops all along the beach and that buddy diving is allowed. I also didn't understand there are minshuku (Japanese inns that are like an old traditional Japanese house... right down to the tatami mat floor) that cater to divers all over the peninsula there. If I had understood that I may not have called Manbo and made the reservations. I don't know who it was that answered the phone there but they were impatient with us and really didn't want to answer questions. I have to say the customer service on the phone was poor. They were booked full and when asked if they could recommend a minshuku to stay in they impatiently said to just come dive with them and they would reserve a minshuku for us. So we did. I have to say that when we got there they treated us great.
Like most of the dive shops Manbo has a parking lot up on the hill which they directed us to by phone. They came up to the parking lot and retrieved my gear and drove it down to thier shop. We walked from the parking lot down a winding road to the beach. Walking along the sidewalk along the beach you pass in front of the Osekan and many many small dive shops. I don't remember the names of all the shops but I do remember passing a place called Osper, it seems like there are at least a dozen scuba shops to choose from. There are hundreds and hundreds of tanks lined up along the sidewalk. The beach was covered with blue tarps on which divers are preparing their gear. The beach was so full of people preparing to dive that you almost can't see any sand. The bay was full of little red inner tubes with diver below markers.
Manbo isn't the furthest shop down the beach but almost. It felt like we went almost to the tip of the peninsula before we got to their shop. To get to Dive house Manbo you walk all the way to the end of the beach and just past a little rock and cement pier which protects the inner bay. The inner bay side of that pier has a rock stair case with a metal hand rail that goes down in to the water. This is where the dive shops that are out past the beach enter the bay. Manbo diving center's facilities are really nice. They have outdoor and indoor showers. Plus two nice jetted stone hot tubs one for use with and one for use without wetsuits. As I said thier rooms were all booked so I don't know what they are like but it seems they have two single beds per room. They have a nice dining area and they provided lunches and dinner if requested.
When we went in to check in and select some rental gear for my dive buddy they gave us a menu and asked us if we wanted lunch. We selected lunch choices (Japanese food of course) and it was waiting for us after the first dive. Once we had everything picked out we started our first dive. The first dive was on the bay side of the peninsula and we entered the water via the stair case on the small rock pier. The bay seems to decend gradually and alternates between levels of large stones and bands of sand. The fish are beautiful and plentiful. I don't know the names of all of them but we saw lion fish... beautiful little blue fish. We saw some large fish with yellow tails chasing schools of smaller brown and silver fish. There were some very primeval brown and tan striped fish that lay on the bottom, these fish were long and slender and always seemed to be seen in pairs. There are lots of sea urchin in the spaces between the large stones during the day and when we did our night dive were covering the large stone area which separates the bands of descending sand. The surface temperature was about 26 or 27 Celsius and at 20m depth the temperature was about 23 Celsius. I dove in a 3 mil full body suit with booties and my dive buddy dove in a 5 mil suit with booties. There were many people diving suits with short sleaves. I also saw lots of people wearing vest with hoods under full suits and several dry suits. The nice thing about diving out near the pier is that we were not in the middle of the crazy mass of divers on the beach and we avoided the crowds underwater as well.
Our second dive was on the ocean side. The peninsula is ringed by a paved walk way. Many groups can be seen walking with large wheeled carts full of their assembled gear. Four to six divers will be pushing the carts together maneuvering around the peninsula to the area at which they want to start their dive. The open ocean side of the peninsula has beaches composed of large rocks. At various points around the peninsula there are cement ramps which decend down the beach from the paved walkway into the water. So you push your cart to a little cart parking area next to the ramp you want to use, don your BC, walk down the ramp into the water and put on your fins. The water on the ramp side seemed a lot colder... It might have been 21 or 20 Celsius at depth. On the ocean side we saw a small brown skate or ray. We saw some moray eels... many schools of beautiful little blue fish and even a large group of eels that looked like a feild of grass coming up out of the sand, when fish swam over they dissipeared into the sand. At one point we had a clown fish come out of his home and attempt to run us off. At our safety stop at the end of one of the dives on the open ocean side we saw a really cool eel that looked like this but it was a little more red or orange color. On Saturday the weather was overcast but pleasant. It really seemed on Saturday like the water on the bay side was warm and The water on the ocean side was cold!
Dinner was served in the dining/reception area and was buffet style Japanese food... many dishes to choose from including fresh sushi, miso soup, rice, a meat and potatoes and vegie dish, and other traditional Japanese food, as well as a nice cream cheese and strawberry style cake for desert. Wet suits and wet clothes are allowed at meals because they know you eat them between dives.
Then Saturday night we did a night dive on the bay side. When we were walking down to the ocean to start our dive there were about four or five groups of divers scattered about the bay and you could see thier dive lights from the Surface. We saw some awesome things on the night dive. Lots of lobster, a brilliant red lionfish, an army of sea urchin... lots of iridecent jelly fish and some beautiful chains of eggs with some baby sea creature growing inside, as well as a decent size squid hunting.
We stayed in a Minshuku Saturday night. Breakfast was included and was provided in the tatami room... it was traditional Japanese style breakfast (roasted fish, miso soup, tofu, rice, fish jelly etc). When we got up Sunday it was raining really hard and the air was cold. Manbo recommended that we not be to eager to get out in the water until we saw what the weather was doing. The rain never let up so Manbo came and picked us up from the minshuku at around 9 am. Our wetsuits were hung outside to dry to they were cold and wet but we jumped in the hot tub to put them on and it was no problem. Both of our dives on Sunday were on the open ocean side of the peninsula. There was some surge and some current but it wasn't strong. The water gets deep very fast so on our morning dive we went down to almost 30 meters. We saw a really cool little yellow scaled fish I had never seen before. We saw lots of little Fugu as well as large regular sized fugu as well. We used the hot tubs to warm up and ate our lunch at Manbo. Then we did a second dive after lunch. On Sunday the water on the open ocean side felt warm. I think it was because the air temperature and the rain was colder than the ocean. It was so fun. By the way this is what a manbo fish looks like... but we never saw one.
The dining area/reception area of Manbo has lots of fish identification books and the staff is very helpful at helping you find the sea life you saw on your dive. They also have internet connection thier for customers to use as well. Out experience there was very pleasant... the facilities were nice and the staff was helpful. I never figured out who the grumpy guy on the phone had been. On Sunday evening I drove three hours back to Tokyo. I went to bed before 11 that night... and I slept so deeply! It was an Awesome weekend!
It looks like Tokyo European Divers (TED) were one dive shop over from us! I didn't know they were going. I think I recognized some of them who might have at Atami in August the same time we were there.
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At our local shop, filled rental tanks (10l - 14l) are only 1,000 yen so it is worth the nuisance of bringing them.
