The kids discovered a new favourite hobby on tokashiki island. They looove snorkeling! Although perhaps this place ruined snorkeling almost anywhere else because, as we found out a few minutes into our first beach adventure, around here you just have to put on a mask and stick your face in the water and you are in national geographic.
Mikaya emoting on the ferry. I don’t remember the reason for her displeasure (although clearly it was something that came out of my mouth) but it didn’t last long.
Arriving at tokashiki harbour! It was an hour ferry from Naha, which was a quick taxi from Chatan. A very relaxed travel day.
We rented a cabin in the jungle about a 20 minute walk from the main beaches. Our host picked us up from the ferry and kindly stopped at a grocery store before bringing us to our cabin.
The kids were immediately attracted to this (very likely closed) random park toy beside our place. I wonder how many hobu snakes where living under there?? More on that later…
Our cabin was basically one big room with a loft for sleeping and it was very reasonably priced. It had a fridge and a gas burner and a typically tiny and practical Japanese bathroom. And also a very solid wire mesh fence to keep out the snakes.
On our arrival day we walked down the hill just to check out the beach. I was thankful that I advised the kids to put their bathing suits on bc even though it was a bit cloudy and spitting rain the water was wonderful and the kids all immediately started swimming and building sand structures.
Exploring the surroundings felt like we were in the “The Beach” book/movie. An isolated lagoon with crystal clear water.
However it wasn’t until one of the kids borrowed a mask from another swimmer that the true beach was revealed to us. The fish viewing directly off the beach was incredible!
We don’t have an underwater camera and I didn’t think to get one of those ziplock bags for my phone so I stole these pics from the internet but I picked ones from tokashiki and this is really what it’s like!!
This is Okinawa indeed. We swam with turtles every day. Just sticking your head in the water revealed angelfish and triggerfish and countless others.
The angelfish would actually swim up to me and nibble on my calluses. A little freaky…
The turtles basically ignored us and cruised around eating ocean lettuce and surfing the currents.
Schools of fish would come through and part around us, surrounding but never quite coming into contact.
These two trigger fish pics are more than I could have captured with my iPhone but this is what they looked like. Apparently they bite. Clearly they need to brush their teeth more often.
We saw a couple sea snakes on day one which was really cool. However then we set the kids to learning about the various creatures they encountered and levi reported that these snakes are more venomous than rattlesnakes. And they breathe air. So any snake you see on the bottom will at some point cruise up to the surface to breathe. Gave me some motivation to keep a sharp lookout that’s for sure!
There were two main beaches easily accessible from our place. Both with lifeguards and snorkeling gear for rent. We visited Tokashiku beach one day. But opted for the closer Aharen beach all the other days. It was busier but had more coral and waaaaay more fish. Also lots of snack shacks and food trucks.
Zeke was in salamander heaven. These guys were all over and seemed really slow. There were other green lizards that we saw on the walls of our cabin hunting moths and they were lightning fast.
Most days had the same rhythm. Lazy morning, early lunch then go to the beach. Look for fish and go for walks. Pick up groceries or eat an early dinner at a food truck and then back to the cabin for the evening. Good exercise to walk back up the mountain every night.
Lots of fun rocks and beaches and tide pools to explore.
Highlight of our week here was a boat trip out to the deeper reefs for a guided snorkel tour. By this time the kids all had the masks and snorkel figured out and thus all of us could spend the entire time marvelling at the sea life rather than adjusting our gear and spitting out salt water.
Our guide Key took a few pics for us but they don’t do it justice. The whole experience was surreal. Bright coral, schools of colourful fish, gorgeous clear and calm water. Amazing. The kids all rated it higher than Tokyo Disney.
Only shot that really comes close to showing what it was like down there…
In other news my braiding skills continue to improve. Thanks Julie!
Back to the beach. This is our first destination trip since the takeover of social media and influencers. We continued to be amazed at the amount of beach goers (a very specific type) who would spend their entire time posing in the shallows or making kissy faces while taking selfies. Seriously hours for some of them. I get wanting to brag about the gorgeous scenery but they didn’t even go swimming or snorkeling or anything. Just kneel in the waves and make peace signs. Living life online rather than in actual life I guess. The kids were just as amazed as us which I hope would help them moderate their own screen time in the future.
I thought we would probably be living on rice and fish for this week, but all the Kareme islands are in a national park so there is actually no fish available. Groceries were quite limited so we ate a lot of fried potatoes and spam. Mmmm.. the kids actually quite liked it.
Spam seems to be a bit of a thing on Okinawa. Maybe just meat that’s easy to ship? We saw lots of people with spam shirts and spam carry bags.
Fried in butter with salt and pepper goes a long way.
More snorkel, more beach, more exploring… a lot of the appeal of snorkeling is in the hunt. It’s a variable reward. On one of the last days Kylie and Levi and Mikaya saw a manta ray somewhere between the size of a large lawnmower or a small car (varying reports…). It swam right up to them while they were way out in the water. Kylie forgot to be scared until it was gone.
Bouldering and relaxing…
Our kids can model for the internet with the best of them. But we also climb rocks.
Our last day was rainy on and off so we did school in the morning and hiked the peak above our cabin in the afternoon. There is a viewing platform at the top as well as multiple signs warning about hobu snakes. All week we assumed they basically only came out at night but our neighbour saw one on the same hike we were on. A type of pit viper that grows over 5 feet long, we were happy to not make their acquaintance!
Our last day we packed up and our host drove us back to the ferry. I booked the fast ferry home and either the smaller size or larger waves made it a full on rollercoaster ride. Standing on the back deck helped keep sea sickness at bay. Thank goodness for sunscreen! A 40 minute ride and it was bye bye tokashiki and hello South Korea (a very brief interlude)
Mikaya discovered our Suica cards worked on the train station vending machines, so the kids were thrilled when I (completely out of character) allowed them to buy as much as they could drink from the vending machines to deplete all our cards down to zero.
We really love tokashiki!!
