End of Dive Season 2008 – Hatsushima <25.10.2008>

It is already end of October, the temperatures start to drop below 20 deg. and the leafs start to change their color.
This is a clear sign to finish the diving for this season :'-(
And to make this a special event I had the chance to visit one of the Izu Islands Hatsushima – which is the closest to Tokyo and really easy to reach.

It just takes you 1.5 hours car ride and an other 30 min boat transfer before you reach the small but lovely island. There is not much to see and only few hundred people lives here but this is exactly what makes its charm.

The island is run by one dive station which offers several dive sites on two location of the island.

Beside the good diving spots – especially for Macro Divers – the island offers you a nice coast scene with dramatic rock coast lines.

This is a perfect finish of your weekend trip before you had home with the last ferry…

The finish of my 2nd season @ 160 dives

Saipan – Lost Paradise <9.10.2008>

First – I am sorry I haven’t updated my blog for a long time!
The reason you will see within the next trip reports – I was on the move over the past weekends ;-)

Since my time comes soon to an end here in Japan I want to see the places I only can visit easily from here in Japan.
One of those destinations was always Saipan – part of the Mariana Islands.
To give you an idea here you can find the map:

It is just a 4 hours flight – directly from Tokyo – so really easy to go there. The main attraction definitely is DIVING – I am sure you are now fully surprised ;-)
So please enjoy the next slides about the underwater world there, which includes famous dive spots like: The Grotto (Cave), Ice cream, Lau Lau beach, B52

Famous Grotto:

Impressive Fire Scallop were you can see the current flow!

War & Peace in harmony:

The little ones:

The Free Divers:

If you search for a dive shop in Saipan - I really can recommend you GODIVERS!

It is a great team - really supportive and customizable, very flexible, super friendly ... all in all the first choice!

Here you can find more details: http://godivers.net/

Special thanks at that point to our guides Eva & Sydney!!!

But there is not only the underwater world which is worth visiting this place, beside the beatufil nature - Saipan also has an interesting, but sad history. Mainly about the second World War were you can find many relicts left (Tanks, monition, etc…) or visit places like the Suicide or Banzai Cliff, to remember the thousands of people who committed suicide to escape the US army.

All in all a facet rich island with many things to do & see and real nice people welcoming you with open arms!
And the highlight – one Austrian called Markus … he is as famous as Arnold Schwarzenegger in US ;-)

From the Marijuana’s

The Black Current – HACHIJO <13.9.2008>

Did you ever thought about diving in Tokyo?!
Did you know that Tokyo measures from one end to the other more than 1.000km?!
You don’t believe me?
But it is true! There are several islands in the south of Tokyo which you can reach by ferry leaving Tokyo center and are taking from 3 up to 25hours (!) – which is the southest point of Tokyo.
http://www.hachijo.info/

And one of those islands is Hachijo – which is famous for diving and marine sports. It features a special warm stream which is called Kuroshio (Black Current) which bring a lot of marine life with it.
Another nice feature is that you can visit this island by plane, just taking 45min from Tokyo!
Perfect to spend a long weekend there for diving…

Together with my dive buddy Yuko we joint the local dive shop called Bientos which is run by a nice young team hunting for the big ones.

As soon we arrived we were brought to the next harbor where we took our 3 dives daily to dive points close by.

The water wasn’t as warm as expected as the black current was gone after a recent typhoon.
So our body and soul was constantly refreshed by 23 down to 17degC cold water – brrrrr.

Nevertheless Hachijo offers you a huge variety on fish and other marine life.
From macro like nudibranches, blennies or Yuzen - the generic fish of Hachijo (Butterfly Fish)

Over many colorful groupers or swarms

Until the bigger species like turtles

& finally the rare Thresher Shark – famous for his long tail


We were really lucky to get a glimpse on this big fellow for such long time. Normally they are very shy, but this one was observing us and kept hovering around our heads. Spectacular!

In the evening we all had dinner together and took the chance to try all the nice local food. Beside the usual Japanese Izakaya food Hachijo is famous for a very special fish. Not the type makes it special – the way the make it and especially the way it smells. The name speaks for itself – Kusaya … Stink Fish!!!
This fish is kept in kind of gravy made of its on guts and kept until is half rotten. The air-dry (kill some flies ;-) and serve it – voila!
The smell was unbelievable – you can be lucky that this picture doesn’t smell:

After hours of eating and drinking, laughing and crying (from the smell of the fish) and meeting so many nice people – we had to freeze this enjoyable moment for eternity – say CHEEEEESE

Tokyo Divers