Ishigaki is one of the southernmost islands of Okinawa in Japan and closer to Taiwan than Tokyo and has a tropical climate, great beaches ringed with outer reefs.
It is a 3 1/2 hour flight from Tokyo with JAL, ANA and Peach offering flights. The flights are easy but they do not serve food and will check that batteries are not inside torches and strobes but they are used to carrying dive gear.
Masks are still mandatory in all indoor spaces including planes (unless eating or drinking) and whilst not mandatory outdoors most of the population still wear masks.
There are plenty of accommodation options in Ishigaki town from resorts through to standard japanese business man hotels and a smattering of AIRBNB’s, as you move away from the town accommodation options become less and whilst there is plenty around Kabira, the further north you go accommodation and food options become a lot thinner on the ground. Car hire is useful if you want to explore the island and they drive on the left, cars are plentiful but can become fully booked in peak season (ie Golden week).
Food as you would expect is great with good sushi restaurants, lots of izakaya’s and plenty of Yakiniku restaurants serving amazing Ishagaki wagyu beef. There are lots of options in town and Ishigaki is famous for pineapples, purple sweet potatoes and sea grapes.
So lets get onto the diving, you have two main options either diving with one of the larger operators out of Ishigaki town or one of the smaller options operating out of Kabira. There are currently only about 3 centres that speak English with Prime Scuba based in town, which is quite a large operation and a smaller husband and wife team called Viking scuba in Kabira, who I dived with and was the only one on the boat the days I dived plus one more based in the Club Med resort,
Divers come to Ishigaki to see Mantas and in the summer months through to mid autumn you have a great chance of seeing the every day and most dive shops do at least one dive a day at a manta point. I did 3 of my 9 dives at manta points but only got to see one manta in the distance but this was the only spotted that day and probably that week.
However without seeing Mantas the diving is still great, I did 9 dives in 3 days and whilst none where deep or that technical they were all good, with a wide variety of sea life, good macro life, fun swim throughs, really healthy reefs and a far few turtles more than enough to keep you interested. The coral in particular looks really healthy and reports are that it is growing really well and areas that had limited coral 5 or 10 years ago are now very healthy and we got to see coral spawning.
The water was warm and whilst the local Japanese were all in 5mm full suits, I was more than comfortable in a rash top and boardies.
There are a few minor niggles, tanks are all small 10 litre steel dumpies which only have yoke fittings and are only filled to a maximum of 180 bar, thus dives are quite short and diving is quite expensive at almost US$500 for 9 dives (incl lunch). Only 5 boats can be tied up at the main manta point at any one time.
It is a 3 1/2 hour flight from Tokyo with JAL, ANA and Peach offering flights. The flights are easy but they do not serve food and will check that batteries are not inside torches and strobes but they are used to carrying dive gear.
Masks are still mandatory in all indoor spaces including planes (unless eating or drinking) and whilst not mandatory outdoors most of the population still wear masks.
There are plenty of accommodation options in Ishigaki town from resorts through to standard japanese business man hotels and a smattering of AIRBNB’s, as you move away from the town accommodation options become less and whilst there is plenty around Kabira, the further north you go accommodation and food options become a lot thinner on the ground. Car hire is useful if you want to explore the island and they drive on the left, cars are plentiful but can become fully booked in peak season (ie Golden week).
Food as you would expect is great with good sushi restaurants, lots of izakaya’s and plenty of Yakiniku restaurants serving amazing Ishagaki wagyu beef. There are lots of options in town and Ishigaki is famous for pineapples, purple sweet potatoes and sea grapes.
So lets get onto the diving, you have two main options either diving with one of the larger operators out of Ishigaki town or one of the smaller options operating out of Kabira. There are currently only about 3 centres that speak English with Prime Scuba based in town, which is quite a large operation and a smaller husband and wife team called Viking scuba in Kabira, who I dived with and was the only one on the boat the days I dived plus one more based in the Club Med resort,
Divers come to Ishigaki to see Mantas and in the summer months through to mid autumn you have a great chance of seeing the every day and most dive shops do at least one dive a day at a manta point. I did 3 of my 9 dives at manta points but only got to see one manta in the distance but this was the only spotted that day and probably that week.
However without seeing Mantas the diving is still great, I did 9 dives in 3 days and whilst none where deep or that technical they were all good, with a wide variety of sea life, good macro life, fun swim throughs, really healthy reefs and a far few turtles more than enough to keep you interested. The coral in particular looks really healthy and reports are that it is growing really well and areas that had limited coral 5 or 10 years ago are now very healthy and we got to see coral spawning.
The water was warm and whilst the local Japanese were all in 5mm full suits, I was more than comfortable in a rash top and boardies.
There are a few minor niggles, tanks are all small 10 litre steel dumpies which only have yoke fittings and are only filled to a maximum of 180 bar, thus dives are quite short and diving is quite expensive at almost US$500 for 9 dives (incl lunch). Only 5 boats can be tied up at the main manta point at any one time.
, now corrected 
