2 posts tagged “keramas”

That's a cleaner shrimp on Jon's finger. Otis says if you put it in your mouth, it'll prevent cavities by removing the gunk from around your teeth. Of course, Otis is the same guy who grabbed a deadly sea snake, swearing that the beast's teeth were too tiny to do harm.

Maybe both of those statements are true, but I shy away from taste-based field research. That, and research that involves touching venomous sea vipers.

Just look at the color of the water: it changes from meter to meter, from moment to moment.

The water is also astonishingly clear. After diving in the Pacific Northwest, where visibility is -- to be charitable -- iffy at best, coming to Okinawa is a literal and figurative eye-opener. You think you're 20 feet down, but your dive computer is telling you it's more like 20 meters.

The abundance of sea life here is astounding. There are more than 400 types of coral, and the reefs come in all manner of shape, size and configuration. The one constant you'll find is fish. They're everywhere. Big fish, little fish, colorful fish, plain fish, one fish, two fish, red fish, blue fish. Here's a video that shows some of the life around a reef here:


I was fairly pleased with the performance of my new digital underwater rig, especially given that it was my first time using it. I picked up some gear tips from an experienced Japanese dive photographer, though, and I can say that I'll definitely be investing in a color filter for my marine case. It seems to make a big difference in getting the true hues of the image. For example, these clownfish shots are cool, I think, but you don't get the real brilliance of their coloration:




I was really pretty impressed with the camera's video capability, though. I like this clownfish vid better than the still photos:



Sick of clownfish yet? If you can believe it, I was getting bored of them by the end of our third dive. Mostly because my dive buddy was the aforementioned serious photographer who wanted to sit and shoot them every time we came across one. Hey, man, I told him, there's other sea life down here! Of course, it just came out as "Gurgle gurgle darthvaderbreathing gurgle," so no help there.

Underwater: Where the Language Barrier Doesn't Matter.

Other sea life, though, included this awesome young moray eel:


Video of the moray here:

Tempted as I am to (in reporter parlance) empty the notebook on you and post dozens of photos of the critters that I saw, inundating you with dive photos is not this blog's purpose. I've posted a ton of more photos of the aforementioned fish (and a few videos, too) so if you're interested, inspect those boxes on the left. Some of my favorites not pictured in this post: video of a parrotfish leaving its hiding place, photos of a sea snake, a scorpionfish, a pipefish, and I don't know what kind of fish this is, but it's a cool image.

Not pictured at all: the biggest barracuda I have ever seen. It was about six feet long, but swam off as I tried to approach it for a snapshot. Probably for the best

But of course I have to save the best for last.

Our last dive was a drift dive off of Tokashiki. For those unfamiliar, a drift dive is where you plan to enter the water at a particular spot where you know the current is moving in a certain direction. Underwater, you let the flow carry you to where you want to be, instructing the boat to pick you up there. This was the deepest of all our dives, and gave us the best chance to encounter sea turtles.

That's pluralized on purpose: we saw two, and the latter encounter was the best. I was coming around a large reef made predominantly of staghorn coral, turned the corner, and found this fellow feeding:

I was probably five or six feet away from him. I didn't move, trying not to startle him, but of course he didn't want to hang around too much while a random human clad in neoprene watched him nosh. So he bounced. But not before I got my favorite photo of the day:

Sea turtles swim with remarkable grace. For an animal whose land equivalent is often described as "lumbering," the sea turtle's long, elegant swimming strokes lend it an air of serenity -- almost beatitude. This is true even when divers follow it, trying to get a closer look:

Vacationers and locals alike often escape to the Keramas for a day or two of fun in the sun, relaxing on the beach or playing in the water. It's tough to determine whether the islands are more beautiful topside or undersea. Fortunately, divers don't have to pick.



Any book about Okinawa's environment has to touch on the ocean. These are people that call themselves "uminchu," people of the sea, which hints at the ancient cultural bond between the Okinawans and the ocean. Also, much of Okinawa's future economic development hinges upon ecotourism, so the diving industry is a big part of that.
 
All of this is my way of saying: diving is fundamentally necessary research for the book. I'm liking how my research strategy is turning out so far.