We've never been here before, but after spending the day here on Ishigaki and on the nearby island of Taketomi, I can see that this is Japan's island paradise. There were two groups totaling 35 people who were on today's tour which was organized by a Cruise Critic partipant. It was a fraction of the cost of the similar HAL tour. Our bus took us to the nearby ferry terminal where our guide purchased ferry tickets for us. We also received an introduction to the group of islands which are called the Yaeyama Islands. I also found a vending machine which served Coke Plus which is a new zero calorie drink which helps burn calories. It tasted to me much like Coke Zero.
There are ferries that serve every island and they are sleek and modern. One gets belted in like taking an airplane ride. Our ride to Taketomi Island took around 15 minutes where we boarded a glass bottomed boat for a trip out to a nearby coral reef. Much of the reef that we saw was dead, but other portions were quite colorful with numbers of small fish. We even saw a clownfish (Nemo). On the way back to the harbor alongside the breakwater there was a large school of small barracuda. Our two minibuses then took us on a short ride to two beaches. The first was Starsand beach with the unique feature of very small sand like crystals in the perfect shape of tiny stars. I learned that they were actually plant material that crystallized. The second beach was Kondoi Beach which was a gorgeous white sand beach with a number of people swimming and sunbathing. Unfortunately we didn't have time to swim there.
Our buses dropped us off at a place where the water buffalo wagon ride departed from. The large water buffalo were controlled by a single piece of rope through their nostril, and they faithfully plodded along on the 1/ 2 hour ride around the village. All of the houses are of concrete construction and most have tile roofs with a stone lion on the roof for protection. Additionally each plot of land is surrounded by a thick coral rock fence about 4 feet high which is used for typhoon protection.
We took a tour of the small museum inside their only temple before walking to a little cafe where we obtained some liquid refreshment and others some ice cream. It was a bit hot (actually more than a bit!) with high humidity and we were ahead of schedule. Our group voted to head back to the ferry terminal and catch an earlier ferry back to Ishigaki Island. Once there, most of our group boarded prepaid taxis back to the ship. We elected to walk around the downtown area and then walked the 20 minutes back to the ship.
Once on board, we went through exit immigration from Japan. It was pretty quick because all the officials had to do was scan a QR code that was placed in our passports when we entered the country a little over a week ago.
My wife and I adjourned to the Crow's Nest to enjoy a refreshing soda, listen in on team trivia, and watch the sail away. We took dinner in the Lido again but without our granddaughter as she had connected up with her new friends for dinner.
Phil's talk on Buddhism tonight was fully attended. It was an intellectual presentation of the history and tenets of this important faith group within Asian culture. Afterwards we elected to read and I updated this blog as the evening entertainment was BBC's Frozen Planet Live which we've seen multiple times and the night's movie didn't appeal either.
With tomorrow being a sea day, we're really looking forward to relaxing.
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