Zamami

There’s nothing quite like a relaxing day on the beach. Today was a mix of relaxation and commuting. Yes, we joined the rush hour crowds on the Yui Rail monorail for just one stop. It’s a great service, but a reminder that we don’t enjoy having to stand up on crowded trains too often.

One stop though: yes, we could have walked that far, but by the end of the day, we’d walked over ten miles, despite it being a day of ‘relaxation’, so that little reprieve was of some benefit.

We rode the high speed ferry, Queen Zamami, to the island of Zamami. High speed, and it bounced pretty high on the waves, too.

There were two beaches of interest, each a 1.5 km walk from the port, but in opposite directions. We thought, we’ll walk to both, and back, for a total of 6km. Not too far at all. Huh. We hadn’t figured in walking to the ferry terminal, walking along the beaches, mooching around the little town behind the ferry port, and walking back home via our dinner venue. Ten miles, all told: very proud of Liesel (and of myself).

It’s a very peaceful, quiet island, at least it is this time of year.

We walked to Ama Beach along the road and only a few vehicles passed us. This is a nice sandy beach, reminiscent of Kailua (Hawaii) with vegetation right at the top of the beach. I wandered over to the end of the beach looking for rock pools but they weren’t very interesting. A couple of people were paddle-boarding, and a couple of others were snorkelling. Othar than that, we had the beach to ourselves. We sat down, watched and listened to the waves and attempted to keep our eyes open.

We saw some almost see-through crabs, a spider and some crows. Plus, some tracks that may have been birds but maybe, more interestingly, signs of a baby turtle hatching and heading for the sea.

On the way back, I walked up the steps to a bluff: the map showed us a Statue of Marilyn. Marilyn who? Well, there was no statue at the top, although the view over the sea towards the other islands was stunning.

It turns out Marilyn was one of a pair of lovers. Her statue is here on Zumami while her lover, Shiro, is way over there on Aka. Disappointingly, Marilyn is depicted as a dog. And the statue is by the road.

It was a hot day and we are very grateful for the vending machines dispensing copious water, fruit juice, soft drinks and coffee, although the latter is often too sweet.

The town was very quiet, just a few locals going about their business. One guy watering his plants, another trying out his wetsuit. Several little old ladies were tending small plots by the side of the road. The caff was closed, as was the International Guest House with its mixed dorm and its female dorm. It was a very small house and presumably very cosy at peak season.

Our lunch consisted of the snacks we’d brought with us. Then we walked to our second beach of the day: Furuzamami. This time, we didn’t walk along the coastline but up and over a hill. It was steep. We knew the total distance was about 1.5 km so we kept going, but it was a long haul up that slope. We could look down on the smallholdings below. Small fields with fresh furrows. There was even a goat. I helped as much as I could by clapping and scaring some crows away from eating the seeds.

Downhill the other side was no less steep and we were grateful that again, very few vehicles passed us, including the local bus a couple of times.

This beach wasn’t as nice, not much sand, mostly broken up coral and seashells, so a bit bumpy underfoot. But the sea was gorgeous, the sort of bluish green colour than never quite shows up in photographs.

Liesel had a nice long rest while adventurous old me walked to one end of the beach, passing a mere three other people who were having a dip in the sea. I saw a discarded toilet seat and I thought to myself, if I needed to warm up my bum, I could just sit there. Then I realised: it probably wasn’t plugged in.

Plans to walk to the other end of the beach too were thwarted by two things. The camber of the beach became very uncomfortable, I felt I could have toppled over into the water at any moment. Plus, the knobbly stuff I was walking on was beginning to annoy my feet.

So I rejoined Liesel for a long, long slumber, listening to the waves, thinking about things, solving Brexit and Trump and all the other horrible things going on in the real world that we try not to think about too much but which we can’t totally avoid when we’re online, even if we look at Twitter through our fingers because it’s all so negative.

Liesel said that there were two things missing: maybe we should have brought our swimwear. And, if we’d had a car, we wouldn’t have to walk back to catch the boat. A third thing that would have been nice: a trolley dolly coming by selling ice creams and cocktails.

Sun, sea, sand (well, shells) and snoozing, that’s the way to do it! No book to read, no internet, no people.

We had to get back for the ferry, then more walking in Naha, stopping for a meal on the way back to our b&b. Ten miles: that certainly wasn’t planned! Liesel was asleep by 8pm and I wasn’t far behind.

Okinawa and its islands are overrun by these guardian lions, or lion/dog hybrids, depending on who you believe. They’re usually in pairs, one to keep in the good spirits and the other to keep out the bad. Not everyone takes them seriously. many are traditional but there are plenty that have been updated, made fun of.