Maeda Point & Onna Point

Weekend of October 20th:

We had decided that it was time to dive the much loved Maeda Point.Since arriving to Oki, Noa and I had been told over and over again that the place to go was Maeda Point. The catch is that it's a little bit of a drive and you have to get there early because it fills up by 8 am. So, we met Meg and Joe early and loaded the car with enough equipment and supplies for a morning's worth of great dives off Maeda Point.

After getting lost and making some turns in the middle of cane fields, we found the area known as Maeda Point and everyone was right - it was beautiful! A total divers dream, this place had a great parking area, bathrooms, and a stairway leading into the water. We had to explore and take in the sights before lugging all our equipment out. Here's some photos.

In our excitement of finally finding the place, however, we kinda neglected to question why the parking lot was empty and why we had to cross construction barriers to get to such a beautiful local. Soon, the reason became evident:

If you can't read the sign* well, it says that Cape Maeda is OFF LIMITS. They closed it for environmental maintenance. So, we were stuck. We had all our gear and were ready to go on a dive or two, but now we had no clue about where to go. We did consider diving there anyway, since it seemed pretty desolate, but we didn't want to risk Noa and Joe to get in trouble for trespassing and then having the military get wind of it and have it affect their jobs. We decided to call the experts. While we were calling some dive shops for their advice, up drives Meg's dive instructor. After he assessed the situation, he said that it would be better for us to dive at a different location. We followed him to a different dive location called Onna Point - which was up north a little further.

Onna was beautiful too, although it was a little tough getting to the location, since you pretty much have to off-road it once you turn off the main road (the photo doesn't quite do it justice, so imagine that same scene with lots of holes in the ground). Here are some photos of the view - the drive off-road and the view from where we parked:

We ended up doing 2 dives that day. Both were good dives, although I continued to have issues clearing my ears. The first dive I got to 80 feet and the second dive was around 40, but was fun because we spent a lot of time exploring one area thoroughly. I felt like I almost got to see more, since I wasn't trying to push ahead and see what comes up next. I even got to go through a little passageway. Noa had a run in with a mama clown fish that was not about to give up her anemone without a fight. If only I had had an underwater camera. The only downside to the dives was the entrance and exit point into the water. The way Onna is set up, the point of entry is by climbing on coral rocks into the water. This is not always easy with a 40lb. tank strapped to your back and fins in your hand. Also, there were other diving groups around, so the pressure is on not to make a complete fool of yourself going into the water. Thankfully, I didn't fall or slice anything open on the sharp coral. I did like Onna and could easily go back for another dive, but I have heard rumors that people are still swimming and diving at Maeda, even though it's technically "closed". Hmmmm....maybe I'll get to dive that sooner than I originally though.

Here's a pic to leave you with. It's the area that we had to maneuver while going in and out of the water (the area that dips in).

*Look at the bottom right hand side of the sign. It gives a phone number to contact the "Onna Government PUBRIC Department"! Now that is one of the joys of living in Japan.