Day 370

JAPAN - DAY 5 (OKINAWA)

Today I woke up early and headed back to Cape Manzamo to do some diving.  I had planned to do more diving, but because the trip was so short I ended up diving just four times: once with the whalesharks, and three dives today.  I had set it all up very last-minute with Piranha Divers, which is one of the (surprisingly) few dive shops in Okinawa that cater to English speakers.

It turns out that no matter which company you go with, everybody meets at the same spot and takes the same boat.  There were at least two other dive companies on the boat (probably more, it's hard to tell) and almost everyone was Japanese.

I said it about the whaleshark dive and I'll say it again: the safety standards in Okinawa are abysmal.  The norm is to do deep dives first and shallow dives later; that didn't happen at all.  Tanks were not secured and were upright while the boat was moving--broken toes, anybody?--and the overwhelming majority of the divers never checked their gear, just pulled it on and hopped in.  There was no turn system for jumping in, and I saw at least one diver land on another.  It wasn't just one company doing this; it seems to be the norm there.  Yikes.

Anyway, there were seven divers in my group: the two guides, a couple from Italy, a pair from Indonesia (or was it Malaysia?  I always get them confused) and myself.  The first dive was relaxing, not too deep, and we saw some nice things.  Lots of fish, some lionfish, pipefish, frogfish, anemones, etc.  I didn't have a camera with me, but fortunately the Indonesian (or Malaysian?) couple had a camera and were kind enough to share some photos with me!  All the photos from the dives are from them; I took none.

Again with the bun-hair.  It's great, I tell you!  No more tangles!

After the first dive, I noticed something disturbing: tons of the Japanese divers were chain smoking between the dives.  Not just one or two cigarettes, more like five.  Cigarettes are bad for divers because they increase the level of carbon monoxide in the bloodstream.  It's like taking a balloon underwater; the deeper you go, the smaller it gets.  When you go underwater, the water pressure condenses the gases in your body, which can be dangerous.  This is true of all gases; oxygen can cause seizures at pressure, so deep divers often mix their air with inert gases like helium.  At about 100 feet below the surface, compressed nitrogen in regular air can act like laughing gas (which is compressed nitrogen gas) at the dentist's office.  Carbon monoxide is pretty bad for you in small amounts, but when it's compressed it can potentially be life-threatening.

Not to mention that cigarettes are disgusting.  The worst part was that all the smokers were smoking in the very limited shady spot where I was trying to have a snack.  I gave them a very dirty look and said "Iyarashi!" (which means "disgusting!") in a disapproving and annoyed voice. They didn't seem to care.  As far as I'm concerned, cigarettes are the scum of the earth.  Second-hand smoke is more dangerous than the cancer-sticks themselves; it's one thing to slowly kill yourself, but you really have to be a foul, loathsome creature to subject the rest of the population to that.  Smokers in America seem to be more considerate than smokers here in Asia, many of whom will blow smoke in your face and not see anything wrong with that.

But enough about those nasty shade-smokers!  Let's see some diving photos.  You can't quite tell in this photo, but that black blob is actually a very cool frogfish!

Frogfish!

Getting up close and personal with an anemonefish.  (Clownfish are a type of anemonefish.)  They're pretty aggro, pissy little things, really.  Like if Marlin and Nemo were on crystal meth.

This guy will fight you if you come too close to his anemone.

The second dive was miserable!  We noticed the current as soon as we jumped in, and we probably should have just gone to another location, but like I said, safety standards are lacking on the island. The current was so strong that we were grabbing dead heads of coral and pulling ourselves forward.  I had to focus hard on my breathing to not hyperventilate.  Another diver in the group ran out of air in less than 30 minutes.  (For non-divers: this means we were using a lot air and working really hard; most people can manage a 50-60 minute dive with some air left in the tank.)   When I mentioned later that the dive seemed a little unsafe, the dive leader/shop owner implied that I was an unskilled diver.  That doesn't seem like a great line of thought for a dive shop owner.  Plus, if I really was an unskilled diver, all the more reason to not lead a dive in that current!

But I digress.  After that second dive we were all starving, so we decided to get lunch together at an Okinawan taco place.  Okinawan tacos are a food that is unique to Okinawa.  It's technically a taco... but it appears to have been created by someone who had only a vague and fuzzy description of a taco.  The best part of this Okinawan taco shop was that you order by vending machine.

You put in your money, press the button, and a ticket comes out.
You give the ticket to a waitress.  She doesn't even have to talk to you to get the order!

Many of these options are actually the same.  Not sure why there's so many buttons.

I ordered the basic Okinawan taco.  It's rice on the bottom, with meat and shredded lettuce and some tomatoes.  The orange sprinklings on the top are--wait for it--crushed Doritos.  The stuff on the side is salsa, of course.

Okinawan taco.

Slightly different view.  

I ordered the boring basic Okinawan taco, but there's lots of options.  You can order with bacon (actually just ham, pictured below), cheese, eggs, ketchup, and/or avocado.  The Okinawan taco was actually very delicious, despite its barely passing similarity to a real taco.

Never order bacon outside of America.  It's not what you want.

The third and last dive of the day was lovely.  We saw two kinds of sea snakes, a black-and-white banded variety and a dark green variety.  They were beautiful and peaceful!  They look so cool when they're swimming.

They're so cool!

Look at the sleepy baby.

No, I didn't pet it.  (I pet a different one though!)

We also saw two very large black pipefish:

In the photo it looks banded, but underwater it looked totally black.

A really big sea cucumber:

It's huuuuuge!

And the best part of the whole day: I FINALLY got a cleaner shrimp to clean my hand!

See that little thing on my hand?  I AM SO HAPPY I HAVE THIS PHOTO.

I've been trying to get a cleaner shrimp to clean my hand for over two years now, ever since I saw another person successfully get his hand cleaned.  Every time I saw them, I tried.  And finally, at long last, it worked!  It tickles, if you're wondering how it feels.

Awww look at that little guy.

Upon closer inspection I'm pretty sure this is not my hand.  First of all, I don't have a wedding ring,
and I'm pretty sure my arm is not actually that hairy.

Cleaner shrimp have a symbiotic relationship with fish.  They live in anemones, which protect them.  Anemones are often venomous to the touch, like jellyfish.  Fish will come stop by the anemone, and the cleaner shrimp will hop on to the fish.  The shrimp eat the dead skin of the fish, so they get a free meal that comes right to them.  Fish who get cleaned regularly are healthier and have fewer skin parasites than fish who don't get cleaned.  Pretty neat!

Triumphant after my victory with the cleaner shrimp, I went back to my bug-infested (but lovely) hostel at Cape Maeda.  Since I didn't get any photos earlier during the dives, I decided to go back out for some snorkeling photos.

Here's a fish being cleaned by cleaner fish.  Yes, there are also fish that clean bigger fish.  It's the same general concept as the cleaner shrimp.

Parrotfish getting cleaned.

He's got two cleaners!

These guys are everywhere.

I found a sea snake while snorkeling!  Good thing these guys are so chill.

Snaaaake!

A not-very-clear face shot.  It's hard to stabilize your camera without a weight belt on.

See him down there in the center of the photo?

Not a very clear photo, but it's a cool fish.  I believe this is the juvenile form of... something else.  I can't remember.

And what do we have hidden in here?  A scorpionfish.

Let's be honest, he's not hiding all that well.

Oh look, another hidden scorpionfish.  At least this guy is doing a slightly better job of blending in.

From this angle he might actually be a bit hard to find.

But this angle has more light.  Easy peasy.

Even closer!  Look at the detail next to his mouth.  Wow.

Then I found a proper nudibranch!  A nice pretty one!  I love nudibranchs because 1) they move really slowly, and 2) they're amazing and diverse creatures.  They're sea slugs, and they are much cooler than land slugs.

Nudibranch!

This is a pretty common variety, Chromodoris magnifica.  Cool name, huh?

Some other stuff:

It's a fish tornado!

Check out this Queen Angelfish!

And this cute Ornate Butterflyfish, Chaetodon ornatissimus:

And a puffer:

Here's an anemonefish:

And good news, I identified this cutie.  He's a Latticed Butterflyfish, Chaetodon rafflesii.

Isn't he adorable?

Well that's enough for today.  Coming soon: more fish/sea snakes/underwater creatures, castles, beaches, and... oh that might actually be all!

Cheers,
Ashton