Amami Oshima

[The Mushroom King]

As promised, a quick report on diving in Amami this past weekend.

from the JUE website

Diving was very enjoyable with water temperatures between 27-28 degrees and surface temps at 29-30. And yet I still heard many shrieks of samuiii and our guides were in 7mm wetsuits! Unfortunately, a typhoon had been though a week earlier and reduced visibility to between 8 and 18 meters compared to the usual clear blue seas. Hard coral formation and schools of small fish overwhelmed us as we explored and floated among the residents. A few highlights were dozens of garden eels, a praying mantis shrimp, many gobies, a great night dive, and with only a minute left on our final dive - a huge sea turtle!

Overall the diving was good, but I'm not sure if I'd go back as there are many other places to go and the diving was a bit expensive... Maybe Kerama or iriomote next time

 

[Geoff_H]

Lovely shot of the Cinderella nudi, that is really very pretty!

I spent the weekend in the slightly less glamorus Osezaki for my first trip there this year.

 

[The Mushroom King]

Thanks Geoff. The guide said that its normally too warm for nudis so I was pretty happy to find the cinderella. and conditions were good so I was able to get off a lot of shots to ensure that I'd get at least one keeper!!! As warm as it was, I really missed all the soft coral we have around here.

Haven't been to Osezaki in awhile... likely head out to Atami or IOP next week perhaps... is the water at ose still reasonably warm?

 

[Geoff_H]

I think it was about 21 degrees, fine for me in a wetsuit. There was a lot of drysuit divers around though, probably more than half.

There was a lot to see though, found this cute cheekspot scorpionfish



As well as the always cool anenome hermit crab



The biggest surprise was a motorbike at 20m.... nobody believed me until I showed them this photo! (crapply lit by my dive light). I wonder if this could have been a recent typhoon victim?

 

[Geoff_H]

 

[Mar Scuba]

That motorbike in Osezaki has been there for the last 10 years or so...

No picture of you riding on it?

Just kidding, would not want to disturb any marine life on it.

 

[The Mushroom King]

I havent come across the motorbike. where is it? wannai I assume....

 

[Geoff_H]

It's in the bay... thinking back, I'm not surprised I never saw it before since...... and I prefer to dive the point or the other side!

I have only dived in the Bay for my rescue class, and night dives before.... I got too laxy to walk to the Point for the 3rd dive on Saturday so had a trip out there. You should be able to find it by starting directly in front of Hotel Osekan and swimming straight out perpendicular to the shore... at 20m or so.

If you get to a small dingy wreck you've gone too far