After another absence, I got back into the water on Sunday for a couple of great dives under almost perfect conditions.  The dive site was Maeda Misaki, the dive buddy was my usual one, and the sun was shining brightly.  There were a few clouds around Okinawa and it had rained hard during the night, but the sun was out the entire time I was at the Yomitan dive site.

Had to get a couple of tanks from Ark Dive as soon as they opened which means I only got to a half-full Maeda carpark at 7:45am.  My dive buddy was just getting out from his first dive of the day, and reported good visibility and little if any waves.  There was some corrent going right-to-left as you look out (southwards) and there had been similar all week at other dive sites on the western coast.  So my buddy had a bit of a surface interval as I geared up.

My buddy was showing off his new shiny dive gear which, I have to say, was pretty impressive.  A Halcyon backplate/wing setup, combined with a Scubapro and Apeks (I think) regulator setup is very high quality, and I imagine not the cheapest setup in the world.  Ah well, if my car wasn’t such a moneypit then I would probably able to get a similar one too!  Although saying that, I’m still more than happy with my AP Valves wing and Tusa regulator setup.  The reg setup is 5 years old but still breathes great and hasn’t given me a single problem so far (touch wood).

So we got into the water which was a very comfortable 29C at the surface and swam out to the descent point.  On descent I noticed a preying mantis shrimp, which you certainly don’t see too much of as they usually scurry away when they see divers coming along.  This one hung around for a little while though and was nice to see.

It headed off out of sight and so I continued descending to around 30m as we swam across to the “2nd reef” at Maeda.  It’s a swim straight out and then when you get there you’re greeted by some nice looking coral and some really big anemones.  It was around this 2nd reef that not one but two eagle rays crossed our path.  Seeing rays is pretty rare diving in Okinawa, and apart from the two mantas that almost swam into me on a late afternoon dive at Maeda a couple of years ago, this was the first time I had seen them while diving.  We also saw a sizeable, dark coloured eel sticking out as we swam along.

So all in all an excellent first dive, and we surfaced and took on some fluids while the nitrogen levels in our bodies subsided.  Felt pretty good to be out and about in the sunshine, especially as the previous night’s rain was just taking the edge off the heat.

The 2nd dive was almost as good as the first, although not as deep as the 33m we hit on our first dive.  Highlights included seeing an octopus and another eel in the shallow waters.  Two 50-minute dives and we were still out of the water and heading to Starbucks for a post-dive caffeine fix by 11:15.  Not so many better mornings than that!

Tags: Diving, diving in Japan, maeda misaki, okinawa, scuba diving

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