Just Another Day at Sand Island - Okinawa

Waterlogged Date: 11/10/97

Picture a post card day in your mind. You know, one with bright white beaches, clear, indigo blue water as flat as glass, and a cloudless day, and you'll know exactly what we encountered on one of our recent boat dive expeditions. On this particular day, my dive buddy Randy Hill and I were planning to dive in a location called Sand Island. Sand Island is actually a series of 3 small islands within the Kerama Island chain that begins approximately 5 miles off of the Okinawa coastline in the South China Sea. Although it is relatively close to Okinawa, the lack of personally owned boats, public boat launches, and available charters keeps this area fairly remote. When we arrived at the Makiminato Fishing Cooperative, the winds were non-existent, the temperature was already a balmy 88 degrees, and not a cloud was in sight. Things just couldn't have been better for a day of diving. The launch of my 14 foot inflatable was uneventful and 30 minutes later my 40 HP engine had us just off the Sand Island coastline. In the vicinity of Sand Island, the currents are normally about 1-2 knots, and get worse with tidal change. These currents sometimes mean the presence of white tip reef sharks, turtles, tuna, and if you time it just right, mantas. The predominant currents also mean clear, blue water with untouched, pristine coral growth and almost unlimited visibility. To avoid the really bad currents we went to the southernmost part of Sand Island to find an anchorage. On the first try, Randy dropped the anchor over the side and it was quickly swept away. Because small changes in position can often make a large difference at Sand Island, we only needed to move 300 yards further south to find a suitable anchorage with only about 2 knots of current. It was tough to decide whether to dive or just lay around and enjoy it all, but I had several rolls of film just waiting to be used so we started getting ready to hit the water. After our normal pre dive ritual, Randy rolled off the side and waited for me to quit fiddling with my camera. I soon rolled in, gathered my equipment, and began my descent into one of the most beautiful dive spots one can encounter. After a cursory check of the anchor, we began heading into the current. Throughout the dive we would seek relief from the current by going down into the channels dispersed throughout the coral peaks. This would ultimately make lugging around a camera with a 5 foot strobe arm spread and dual strobes that much easier. With the lack of suspended material in the water, I estimated the visibility to be somewhere around 200 feet and just perfect for photography. I first checked on Randy and found him in his usual face down, shell finding position scouring the bottom. Now that I was certain everything was normal, I began to turn my attention to the critters and the scenery and to the business of taking pictures. What I noticed first were the large coral formations that seemed to cover every square inch of the reefs. Staghorn, Elkhorn, Tabletop, and a myriad of other hard and soft corals made choosing a shot to take extremely difficult. Along with this prolific coral growth, there is also an abundance of tropical fish that further compounded the problem. It was tough, but I finally got down to business and began to capture some beautiful scenic shots. In the meantime, having figured we meant them no harm, large schools of baitfish surrounded us and continually moved nervously about us as we moved over the coral. I spent some of the dive "helping"' Randy look for shells. This means I would pick something up that I thought he might be interested in and give it to him. He would look it over and usually decide that it wasn't worthy. And I thought I knew my shells.... About midway through the dive, Randy approached me underwater and extended his hand as if there was something he wanted to show me. Was there ever! Unknown to Randy, he had picked up a very live, very large, and very dangerous Court Cone (Conus Aulicus). Unfortunately, he was handling it by the wrong end so I took the cone from him and deposited it back on the reef and made a mental note to explain to Randy the dangers of improper cone shell handling when we got back to the boat. Later, towards the end of the dive, I noticed a lone Egg Cowrie (Ovula Ovum), its white spotted black mantle out and completely covering it's pure white shell. It was apparently eating lunch which was the soft coral it was perched upon. Without disturbing it, I moved in as close as my 15MM lens would allow and as safe as I thought practical. There was still a strong current present that was making positioning very difficult so I wanted to be careful. Having the "perfect" subject on which to experiment, I used a variety of strobe positioning and outputs from just about every conceivable angle to use up the rest of my film. Noticing that we were 80 minutes into the dive, I thought it was about time that we return to the boat. I signaled Randy that we should get back, and once on the boat I confessed that I didn't want to go home as the diving just didn't get any better than what we had just experienced. Luckily, we still had another tank to burn, so after our surface interval we decided we would devote our next dive to locating some sharks... Contact PADI instuctor Steve Schalk in Okinawa for information on diving the area. Story by Steve Schalk.

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