Snorkeling in the Keramas!

 
Snorkeling in the Keramas has been on my Okinawa bucket list since we moved to our little island paradise!  I was so excited that we were finally able to go here.  There is something about being on a remote island that I just love.  (Okinawa is not exactly remote.  It's pretty big for an island, and vastly populated.  But the outer islands around here are just amazing to me.)  The Keramas are a chain made up of about half uninhabited and half inhabited that offer some of the best snorkeling in the WORLD.  Seriously amazing stuff.  We have been to some of the other outer islands and I just love the feeling of being AWAY from the hoards of other people.  No one else around, just us, the sand and the waves and a couple of grass huts to eat a good meal in.
 
Our journey started by taking a 70-minute ferry ride to our island of choice:  Tokashiki Island.  I'm not going to lie... we chose this island because it is the closest of the Keramas and I get very, very sea sick!  But I popped my dramamine and off we went.  I did feel pretty queasy but there was no barfing.  So the trip was off to a great start.



We found our hotel and it was so quaint, we just loved it.  This is the view from our room!  We were traveling with some friends, Brad and Robyn and their little girl Kaitlin who is Wyatt's age.  They are in the same preschool class so they were excited to be on "vacation" together! The hotel was run by a Japanese family and had about 5-6 rooms.  In traditional Japanese fashion, they cooked meals for us - dinner and breakfast.  We dropped our stuff off and went in search of lunch.  We ended up eating at this little Japanese shack that made us the best bowls of Soba noodles we'd ever eaten.  YUMMY!
 
Next up was the beach...our own private one, above!  The water is so clear you can't even tell where the sand stops and the water starts.  it was over 90 degrees and sunny and very, very humid.  Definitely a TROPICAL paradise!  The water felt amazing!!  It was so great to jump in and cool off.   We had to reapply sunscreen about 39 times but it was a great afternoon.  We took turns watching the kiddos and snorkeling.  Tommy and I didn't see anything completely amazing, but there were tons and tons of fish.  Everywhere there were fish!  Every color, shape, size, and pattern you could imagine.  Black and white polka dot fish.  The most beautiful rainbow fish I have ever seen. Huge schools of fish. A sea snake. A fish who BIT me when I pointed to it to show Tommy.  And two sweet angelfish who followed us on our entire snorkeling adventure from start to finish!  The coral was beautiful!


After a full day of traveling and fun in the sun, our little Olivia was finally wiped out.  She fell asleep on the beach!  This is amazing because our kids NEVER fall asleep in random places - I mean seriously, never! 

We cleaned up and had dinner at our hotel.  They made us a delicious dinner and the kids played with the owner's children.  Apparently a good game of Mario Kart is universal and breaks all language barriers!  The kids decided to join us for ice cream down the street!  Here they are at the ice cream stand!  We finally called it a night, exhausted from the day.... and lack of air conditioning... :) 

The next morning, Robyn's family went to the other side of the island to the other beach, but we opted for a self-guided tour of the island via our car (we brought it over on the ferry with us).  We found two World War II memorials, one of which was a memorial at the location of the mass suicide of the Japanese Army. 




We also found a neat park with a HUGE roller slide!  And warnings about the Habu snakes.  Tommy thinks it is funny that they can manage to spell Infestation correctly but not Habu. :)  The kiddos played there for about 30 minutes and made friends with some other little Japanese kids who followed Olivia around as if she were totally amazing.  They gave Wyatt a Pokeman card and picked flowers for Olivia.  So sweet!

Tokashiki is very mountainous, and we stopped at tons (and I do mean TONS!) of look-out points to take pictures of the surrounding islands and aqua blue water.  I have never in my life seen water this color and sand this soft - soft as silk!  It was amazing.  Okinawa has amazing beaches and views, but hands down Tokashiki Island trumps it any day of the week!


Here is our happy little girl on the ferry ride back.  She was ALL over that boat giving Tommy a workout on Father's Day!  The ferry ride back was ok for me, but Wyatt did end up puking (and NOT over the side of the boat!!).  Always an adventure with those kids, I tell ya! :)  All in all, a great little mini vacation before "GO" time.