Diving in Okinawa?

[grandizer52]

Noticed the okinawa threads do grow to quick...guess people are busy diving hahaha. if you look at the drama of the Ohana forum...most of the posters aren't even from hawaii...they are the visiting "experts". thanx again for the great bottom time oki

 

[grandizer52]

was going through my logs, trying to update all the awsome diving I did in OKI, and well I did have some DECO at toilet bowl,,,,170FSW CHOTTO DEEP. who else been out here. it was an interesting area, seen some black tips, wanted more air to hang out down there...who's with me?

 

[P67000]

Hello,

I have been several times in Japan as a tourist, and wanted for this winter to see something a little different. I therefore decided to visit a place with a much better weather than Tokyo in December and I plan a side trip in Okinawa at the end of December/beginning of January. As I had never considered diving in Japan, I was wondering about Okinawa, and I have a few questions:

1. How is the diving in the beginning of January? I mostly dive in lakes in Germany, so I am used to colder waters, but I am not sure dive shops in an island where it's much warmer nearly all the year are as active as they are in the summer. Can I expect to find daily dives, from English speaking dive shops? Are there many of them anyway? English is not my native language but I don't speak Japanese.

2. I am a recently certified AOW, but I would be looking for easy dives. Are there interesting wrecks you can see at this time of the year without fighting too much current or getting too deep (I have horrible air consumption and would like to enjoy more than a short visit to the wreck). I have googled quickly but only found references to interesting but out of reach sites (Emmons mentionned in this thread, or Yonaguni ruins (not strictly a wreck, but...). Well, out of reach for me, at least.

3. Is gear rental readily available at English-speaking dive ops? (yes, I know it's a stupid question, but if foreign-operated clubs catters mostly to regulars, they might assume everyone has their own gear, and it won't be practical for me to bring anything in Japan...)

Thanks in advance!

 

[Golo]

I`d recommend to send japan-diver a pm, he is a dive op there and he has a dive boat. You don`t need to speak any Japanese. You can do boat and beach dives there and you can do courses. You can also rent and buy gear (I`m going to get bp/w from him after he let me try it out on a few dives last time I was there). He can also help you with finding a hotel.

I haven`t been to Okinawa in winter yet, but I was told that in February, when it is apparently possible to dive with whales, they dive with wetsuits. It also depends on you as well though, when I was there in the beginning of May this year, there was a guy diving with 1.5mm, while I was diving with 5mm. He felt fine, and so did I.

I`m an OW and I didn`t find the dives we did in Okinawa too difficult, but I don`t know how weather is in winter.

There is also a German dive op a bit further north on the island. I forgot his name, but if you know how to use google, he should be easy to find. I`m also German, but I found the region where japan-diver is located more accessible from the airport, and more opportunities to stay, and I had such a good time diving with him that I just keep going there. Actually heading there tomorrow again for a week of diving