Kume-jima

Bento Box for Ferry

We took a three day trip to Kume-jima, an island about 50 kilometers west of Okinawa. On the 3 1/2 hour ferry ride out, I interacted with (thank you, Google Translate) a couple of local biologists who seemed to going out to do an island survey. He was an ardent birder, and she was great at spotting whales. With their help, I saw a brown booby (new to my birding life list, if I kept one) and several whale spouts. We all spotted a sea turtle at the same time.

My first impression of the island was just a lot of sugarcane fields with some mountains in the background, but it has turned out to be a delight. Known for fabulous diving and consequently lots of tourists during the season, I think we are the only visitors on the island this weekend. All the shops are closed. This is not necessarily bad. We have the beach to ourselves. Of course I had to pick up some shells.

Tatami-ishi w/ Me For Scale

The first afternoon we took a free shuttle over to the tatami-ishi, 6-million-year-old lava rocks that cooled in the shape of turtle shells. We waded in the water to see small fish and thin-armed starfish, but decided it was too cold to consider a snorkel trip out to Hatenohana, the long offshore sandbar.

I thought we could take a bus around the island, but when a couple of the hotel staff saw us waiting at the bus stop, they picked us up and delivered us to the silk weaving workshop I wanted to visit.

Tsumugi Pongee Silk

We watched a video explaining the process of raising silk worms, then turning their cocoons into thread. Hard on the larvae, but a beautiful result. If I understand the dyeing process, the warp yarn has the pattern, which require the whole pattern be planned out before weaving.
After a tour with the weavers and spending a lot of time picking out a scarf which I plan to use as a table runner, I gave up on the bus plan and had the saleswoman call us a taxi.

Grant Feeding Reef Fish

What a great idea. Our next goal was the fish pools, where fish are trapped at low tide, so we can see reef fish without getting wet. Our taxi driver stopped at a “combi” (think 7-11), and bought us bread to throw to the fish. Even though he spoke only Japanese, I could understand his bemoaning all the plastic bottles, styrofoam, and other junk that cover the shoreline. There’s no point in picking it up, because the next high tide brings in another load.  

We continued, going to the north shore for the ruins of a 15th century castle and a rock formation where tradition says women pray for children (I didn’t). On to see the sakura, cherry blossoms. The drive was a narrow road, up and over the mountain, with cherry trees on either side of the road, absolutely at the peak of their flowering. Gorgeous. Not another car, no one else around. The taxi meter was ¥6160 for this whole adventure, which we rounded up to ¥7000 since the driver waited for us at each stop. A cheap guided tour.

Mifuga Rock

For lunch, we walked over to another combi, but it only had food to cook, so back to the Family Mart where we’d bought beer yesterday. I opted for a mostly-cabbage salad with hard boiled egg and carrots. Grant found his beloved masubi, rice with a piece of meat wrapped in nori. A beer for him, bottled hot coffee for me, plus what I thought was a roll which turned out to be like a doughnut, and we were set for our picnic at Eff Beach. Only other person there was a man plying a cast net too far away for us to see what he was catching.

Eff (White) Beach