Okinawa & Ishigaki

[thomza]

Hey everyone - my girlfriend and l are planning to do a week and a half of diving between Okinawa and Ishigaki between September 28th - October 8th and were just wondering if anyone has any recommendations on what we should see. We have been to Ishigaki before and did a lot of snorkeling and it was pretty great! Unfortunately last time we went too early to see the Manta Rays so it would be great to see them this time around. We are especially interested in shore diving, which I've read before that Okinawa is really great for. We are both OW certified but were planning on doing our AOW before our trip. Also, how does everyone think we should split up the days for our trip?

 

[diverforlife]

You can probably find shore diving on the main island of Okinawa. But for Ishigaki, it's mainly boat diving as far as I know. In Ishigaki, I highly recommend Prime Scuba. You should have a good chance of seeing mantas in that time period, although it's never guaranteed. For hotels in Ishigaki, I suggest Vessel Hotel or Route Inn Grantia, both of which are diver friendly with drying lockers and facilities to wash your gear.

 

[thomza]

You can probably find shore diving on the main island of Okinawa. But for Ishigaki, it's mainly boat diving as far as I know. In Ishigaki, I highly recommend Prime Scuba. You should have a good chance of seeing mantas in that time period, although it's never guaranteed. For hotels in Ishigaki, I suggest Vessel Hotel or Route Inn Grantia, both of which are diver friendly with drying lockers and facilities to wash your gear.

Thanks for the reply! We will definitely check out Prime Scuba. There was one location we found in Ishigaki that we snorkeled at which I think we could shore dive from but it's only possible during high tide. Have you seen the mantas in Ishigaki before? We have actually seen some while snorkeling in Guam at Gun Beach recently so hoping to see a good amount of them during our 4-5~ days in Ishigaki. We are looking at the 18th - 23rd now for Ishigaki and the 23rd - 28th for Okinawa.