Diving around mainland Japan

[UnderwaterFlyer]

I am coming to Japan and I am a avid diver. I was wondering how the tusnami and nuclear incident affect diving around Japan. Okinawa is safe, but what about the waters around main land. Thanks any information would be appreciated.

 

[japan-diver]

They re still diving in Izu and other areas up north. Okinawa and south was unaffected by the tsunami but most of the main island areas are still fine also.

 

[UnderwaterFlyer]

That is great to hear. So there is no concern about the radiation in those areas that were leaking from the nuclear plants?

 

[TJO]

We have been diving all year in Izu (divesites in Tokyo area) and I would say it is perfectly safe. I do not know anyone here that is concerned about that.

 

[altaskier]

The ratio of cooling water volume in a reactor to volume of the ocean is about 1,000,000,000,000,000 to 1. Even if you limit yourself to 0.1% of the ocean as Japan's coastal waters, you still have a trilion to 1 ratio of volumes. So I would not worry at all about diving 100 km away from Fukushima. Radioactive particles on land are a different story because they tend to stay put within a much smaller volume (few 100 square kilometers, maybe only the top centimeter or less of the soil).

Japan Underwater Explorers (Index of /, though the web link seems broken at the moment) is one outfit that has English-speaking divers. I contacted them a couple of years ago and went diving wtih two Canadian ex-pats at Atami. It was fun!

 

[UnderwaterFlyer]

Thanks for the replies and that settles my mind and wil settle my loves one mind about me diving there. Now the next thing is to find some good dive operations and get wet. Any recommendations? I am close to getting my master scuba and would like to finish that while I am there.

 

[TJO]

Welcome to Japan! Mar Scuba, DDT, TED can all help you in the Tokyo Area. They are all here and also on FaceBook. We (JUE) mainly do tech and cave diving nowadays.

Thomas