Okinawa/Ishigaki water temperatures in March?

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nwflyboy

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We're thinking about a trip to the southern Japanese islands: Okinawa, Ishigaki, maybe all the way to the "end of the line"...Yonaguni. We would be there in March (probably the middle of March). I'm guessing the water will still be fairly cold at that point. How is the diving at that time of the year?
 
I went there in March 2015, Ishigaki was okay, 24-ish as far as I can recall (outside temperature was between 25 and 27°, I didn't have much problems ad enjoyed my dives without any problem, dives were not too deep either. We spotted BIG mantas at Manta point even though the Instructor later admitted we were lucky as in that month the chance of seeing them isn't particularly high.

Yonaguni was more challenging, weather was so, a bit of wind and no chance to go to the underwater monument so only did hammerheads dives at Irizaki (both time we spotted them but it was mostly diving in the blue, going as deep as permitted and wait to see if they'd show up), water was around 21-22° degrees and back in the boat we'd pour hot water inside the wet suit.

All in all, enjoyable places to dive if in Japan but don't expect wonders when it comes to corals or quantity of marine life.
 
Thank you, very useful info. Water temps are probably a bit cooler than we like (especially my tropical girl warm-water spouse). We will discuss but I suspect we will probably opt do this trip a bit later in the year when things are more reliably warm. Thanks again.
 
They’re low 70’s.

January through march usually have really good priced charters too since there aren’t many tourists, and the boats the US Military MWR Dive programs charter only offer non-diving whale watching trips

Typhoon season is really only June through mid to late October. Mostly in July & August, but it’s already wrecked 3 dive trips for me so far
 
https://www.shearwater.com/products/perdix-ai/

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