Okinawa {part 2}

I'm skipping today's prompt to continue my Okinawa update.  After a couple of days on the main island we wanted a few days of complete and total relaxation so we took a ferry out to the Kerama Islands, specifically Zamami Island.  

 The island has only about 500 permanent residents, no hotels and only a dozen or so restaurants.  We planned to camp on the beach (you can rent all the necessary equipment for about $25/night) since the few B&B type of places that are available are really expensive.  We got to Zamami, rented all of the stuff we needed, set up camp and headed for the beach.

This was the view from our camp site.

  Jason had the time of his life snorkeling while I read & combed the beach for shells.  

I'm not normally a shell collector but how could I pass up these beauties?!

  

We went into town and had dinner that night then went back to our tent, played a few card games and went to sleep.  About an hour after we went to sleep it started to rain and continued to do so ALL night.  This wasn't just a drizzle, it poured and there was thunder and lightening.  About 1 AM we were completely soaked.  We tried to take refuge in a kitchen shelter but it didn't have any walls and the rain was blowing sideways so that wasn't an option.  We ended up hanging our bags from hooks in a public restroom and going back to our tent to "sleep" in the 2 inches of water that had accumulated inside.  Without thinking twice, our 2 night trip quickly became a 1 night trip.  The next morning we returned all of our soaking wet gear and hiked back to town.  The ferry back to Naha didn't leave until 3 PM so we dropped our bags in a locker at the port and went to Furuzamami Beach where we had heard the snorkeling was phenomenal.   Even though the water was cold and there was no sun in sight, I joined Jason in the water for a short while.  He would have stayed there all day but we had a ferry to catch.

See?  Crappy weather!

The water was so clear.

I'm so happy we invested in an underwater camera!  This guy was my bud, he followed me around the whole time I was in the water (which wasn't very long).

My friend was correct, the snorkeling at Furuzamami was spectacular.  The island is surrounded by coral just feet off the shore and there were fish all over!  The only thing we didn't see that we really wanted to was a turtle. 

This was taken from up on a cliff. 

Such a beautiful island!

I really, really wish the weather had been better.  Other than our lack of sleep, we loved this quiet little island.