Zamami Island, Okinawa
Zamami Island, Okinawa belongs to the Kerama Islands. This chain of islands is located about 50 Km west of Okinawa’s main island. Known for its beautiful beaches and world class diving/snorkeling, Zamami Island is frequented by travelers and water enthusiasts looking to escape the busy city life for a little Rest and Recuperation. “Kerama Blue,” was a name given to the islands based on the brilliant blue coloration of the water. Because of its beauty, nature, and wildlife the Kerama Islands have been designated as a National Park.
Prior to moving to Okinawa, like most people, I’ve never heard of the Kerama Islands. But with COVID-19 travel restrictions limiting our range of destinations to visit and hotels on other islands quickly booking up, Jill and I decided to visit Zamami Island. Based on my research, the island hosts one of Japan’s prettiest beaches, is a popular snorkel spot, and there was a possibility of seeing and swimming with sea turtles, we just couldn’t pass up a trip to Zamami Island, Okinawa.
Zamami Island is easily reached, especially if you live in or are visiting Okinawa. From Naha Port, there are two ferries that leave daily. There is a high speed ferry called “Queen Zamami” that takes about 50 minutes. The other ferry, “Ferry Zamami” leaves daily at 10:00 am, stops at Aka Island and then ports at Zamami Island, the total journey is two hours. Ferry Zamami leaves Zamami Island, daily at 3:00 pm.
Round trip tickets with Ferry Zamami are ¥4030 (about $40) while Queen Zamami tickets cost ¥5970 (about $60). The Visit Okinawa site is a great source to view ferry routes and schedules. Ferry Zamami was a very comfortable ride with abundant seating and tatami rooms for guests that wish to lay down.
For visitors I discourage bringing a vehicle simply because it’s expensive to transport and there is no real need. We brought our bikes on the ferry, no issues. Bikes were ¥380 (about $4) one way. The island is large enough where walking could be exhausting but distances were not that great where a car is needed. Bikes were the perfect alternative to getting around the island and exploring the many beaches and observation decks.
Cycling the island was fairly easy, more mountainous then expected, but it’s Japan so I guess it was no surprise to us. On our second day of the trip we rode our bikes to all the beaches and observation decks throughout the island. We rode a total of 23.40 kilometers (14.5 miles). Below is a screenshot of our route around the island.
Food and Restaurants around Zamami Island
Food in Japan has been incredible and the small island of Zamami is no exception. Surprisingly for a small town there were quite a few restaurants on the island. Unfortunately, because COVID-19 and the State of Emergency, most of them were either closed or doing take-out only.
There was one restaurant that was open to customers, so Jill and I had dinner at Restaurant Marumiya twice and it was delicious! Restaurant Marumiya served up traditional Japanese and Okinawan cuisine with set courses that typically include a main dish, a bowl of rice, a soup, salad, and fermented vegetables. One specialty dish from Okinawa we haven’t tried yet until coming to this restaurant was Goya Champuru.
Goya Champuru – Goya is a bitter melon. By itself it is almost inedible, but stir fry it with meats and other veggies it’s not to bad! Goya Champuru is a favorite summer dish among Okinawans. It is a stir fry that consists of Goya, tofu, pork, and eggs.
Breakfast – The place we stayed at had a great deal with an Izakaya next door. An Izakaya is a Japanese style bar that serves up drinks and small food dishes, kind of like tapas. The Izakaya provided breakfast for the guest house patrons.
To Westerners a Japanese breakfast might be difficult to stomach first thing in the morning. Sometimes I even have troubles finishing all my dishes. It’s not your typical bacon and eggs. It’s more of a bowl of rice, miso soup, fish, tofu, salad, and fermented vegetables kind of breakfast. Honestly, a Japanese breakfast makes sense, you get all your food groups in one sitting. Either way, we had breakfast twice at the Izakaya and the chef prepared us very hardy meals to get us through the day.
The first image below was our first meal. This included a plate of salad, an egg, spam, and a fish filet along with a small bowl of tofu, a bowl of rice and miso soup. The second picture was our breakfast from day two, it consisted of a large bowl of fresh fish mixed with tofu, a green salad with a sausage and spam, potato salad, miso soup, and a hefty bowl of rice.
Zamami Island, Beaches
“Kerama Blue,” best describes the beaches at Zamami Island. I’ve never seen beaches and landscapes like this before. I feel Japan doesn’t get a lot of recognition when it comes to beaches and nature. In magazines and documentaries you always see places like the Maldives, Bora Bora, Bali, the Bahamas but you rarely see the beaches of Japan. Maybe it’s just a best kept secret? I feel beaches in Japan, especially Okinawa, deserve a lot more attention.
The three days we were on Zamami Island, we visited four beaches, three of which we snorkeled. Below are the two main beaches on Zamami Island that were truly memorable.
Ama Beach
What can I say, this beach was brilliant! A five minute bike ride from town, we found ourselves at Ama Beach four times. This is the beach that you go to if you wish to see sea turtles.
We got lucky and saw two sea turtles the morning we snorkeled. Daily, high tide was around 9:00 am. so we made sure to be at the beach around 8:00 am. At the time, Okinawa was in a state of emergency and no visitors are allowed within Japan so we had the beach to ourselves.
As we prepared our snorkel equipment, right away I saw a sea turtle poke its nose out the water for air. After witnessing that, we couldn’t wait much longer and instantly dove in. It took us a while to spot the turtle but once we did I followed his every move for a solid hour. He could give two shits about me and what I was doing but I was fascinated by his every move. The sea turtles come to Ama Beach during high tide to eat the sea grass. I followed the turtle for a while just in awe by his beauty. Turns out, the sea turtles here are green sea turtles.
Green Sea Turtle – They are given this name by the green coloration of the skin under their shell. They are herbivores and eat mainly sea grass and algae. These turtles are found throughout the world. So far, I’ve seen them in both Belize and Japan. Unfortunately, there are countries that harvest them for their eggs, fat, and meat. There are many countries that have made it illegal to hunt green sea turtles, thank god!
In 2016 we were in Exuma, Bahamas with my family and I remember the night sky was absolutely beautiful! I wanted to experience this again. Around 8-9:00 pm we rode our bikes both nights to Ama Beach to check out the night sky. Unfortunately, clouds dominated the sky, but between the sound of the waves and the darkness, it was extremely peaceful. Gazing at the stars was not the only reason we came to this beach at night. Our first day on the island we were riding our bikes. I saw a huge shell crawl across the road. This shell was a hermit crab and definitely the biggest one I’ve ever seen. The hermit crab was a purplish color and the size of my fist. Hermit crabs are nocturnal so we wanted to see if they were abundant on the beach at night. Both nights, the beach was crawling with these giant hermit crabs. Yadokari is the Japanese term for Hermit Crab. Below are a few photos of the hermit crabs we saw on Zamami Island.
Other then hermit crabs, ghost crabs were abundant on the beach at night. The ghost crabs are quick, but not very agile. They would dart in one direction then quickly in the other direction sometimes running right into us. They were absolutely adorable.
Furuzamami Beach
Furuzamami Beach is considered one of the top three most beautiful beaches in all of Japan. I’d have to agree, the water was turquoise blue, surrounded by green mountains, the coral was healthy and the marine wildlife here was abundant. This beach was 1.4 km from town, a pretty easy bike ride but also doable if walking. We primarily came here to snorkel and catch some sun.
The snorkeling at Furuzamami Beach was some of the best snorkeling I’ve done so far. The water was clear, I easily saw 20-30 ft below me. The coral reefs were absolutely brilliant. This beach has a swimming only section to keep people like me away from the bulk of the coral. So although we couldn’t really swim above the coral we could swim to the side of it. I respect that, it’s how they keep their coral alive and fish happy.
There was plenty to see in the swimming only section. I snorkeled solo the first day and saw hundreds of marine species to include black-banded sea snakes, trigger fish, clown fish, parrot fish, and many others that I don’t know the species name.
The second day snorkeling Jill tagged along with me as I was eager to show her the beauty of the coral and potentially show her the sea snakes. We lucked out and saw three sea snakes, two of them were even in a romantic relationship, we did our best not to disturb them.
We also had a fan following. The moment we entered the water, three fairly large fish swam right under us and followed us wherever we swam for a solid half hour.
Black-Banded Sea Snake – It is a little intimating at first swimming in a location where sea snakes live. After all, sea snakes are extremely venomous. But for the most part sea snakes are very shy creatures. In the event of human history there have been very few deadly encounters with these beautiful creatures.
The only accounts I’ve read, have been when they get tangled in fishing nets and the fishermen miss handle them when pulling them from the net. Otherwise, they would rather do their own thing and have nothing to do with us.
A little more about sea snakes. There are 69 species of sea snake that have been recorded. They prefer warm tropical waters, so you won’t find them in the cold Atlantic. They are reptiles and therefore breath air. They tend to surface every thirty minutes for a brief second before slithering back to the ocean floor. I witnessed them do this several times, it was neat to see their little heads pop out of the water for fresh air, sometimes they appeared a little closer then I expected. To survive they have to drink fresh water. They do this by going onto land briefly or relying on rain water that hits the waters surface.
Coasts and Observation Decks
Zamami Island had some of the most dramatic and beautiful coastlines I’ve seen.
Outside of visiting beaches, we also rode our bikes around the island to all of the observation decks to get a look at the views of the surrounding islands and ocean. During the months of March and April, Humpback Whales frequent the area, so there is a good chance to see them in the area by visiting the observation decks. The road around the island is well marked, each observation deck had a sign and the decks were all newly constructed, some even had bathrooms. I won’t write to much about this, I mainly just want to share some photos of the views from the observation decks.
Other Animals around Zamami Island
The good news, there are no Habu on Zamami Island. Habu are pit vipers that are abundant on the main island of Okinawa. Other then the marine life we saw around Zamami Island, there isn’t a whole lot of other animals that live here besides insects. The neighboring island of Aka does have Kerama Deer which are a similar species like the ones we saw in Miyajima Island on Mainland Japan. Apparently, there are no deer on Zamami Island, or so the books say. We were riding our bikes from Furuzamami Beach and spotted one in a field! I thought they didn’t exist on this particular island, I did my research and apparently they are known to swim between the islands, so I guess it is not uncommon. Although I am surprised that deer can swim several kilometers.
We did see several insects and small gecko’s around the island especially at night. Around the hotel were a few huntsman spiders. The ones we saw were really small compared to the giant one that haunted us in Iwakuni. Actually, I like and respect the huntsman spider. They are non aggressive and take care of unwanted bugs around the house. We also stumbled upon a house in town that had an inchworm infestation. I might have seen an inchworm here and there before but never hundreds of them!
Shiro and Marilyn - A Dog Love Story
This is a beautiful love story between two dogs, Shiro and Marilyn. I read about this before coming to the island. There is a statue of Marilyn on Zamami Island and a statue of Shiro on Aka Island. Both statues are facing one another across the 3km of ocean on separate islands. The story goes like this.
In 1986, both Shiro and Marilyn lived with their owners on Zamami Island. Shiro and his humans moved to the neighboring Aka Island, which is only 3km away. After moving, Shiro would disappear early in the morning and come back home soaking wet later in the evening. The owners became curious as to where Shiro was going and they followed him one day. Turns out Shiro would go to the beach and swim to Zamami Island every day to be with Marilyn. The couple had three litters of puppies and lived a happy doggy life. Unfortunately, Marilyn passed away and Shiro then stopped swimming to Zamami Island. This story of love between these two dogs became so popular in Japan that a film was made about it and two statues were erected on each island as a tribute and loving reminder of Shiro and Marilyn.
Zamami Island Manhole Cover
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9 Comments
Gary Bridgford
Love your dog story! You two are living the dream….as it should be!
zimminaround
That story is amazing. You can read more about it online just by typing in the name, so cute!
We’re trying as much as we can during a COVID year.
Petra
I have never heard of this before. Sounds like a perfect place for diving. Beautiful photos was very nice to read this. 😊
zimminaround
I’ve never heard of Zamami Island until moving to Okinawa. It’s a beautiful location. Thanks!
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Andrea
Hi, I like to swim whenever I go anywhere coastal.
I heard of poisonous fishes around Okinawan sea, does it regard Zamami too or is it restricted to the main island?
Thank you very much
zimminaround
Hey!
You will find the same marine life around the Kerama Islands which includes Zamami Island. There are sea snakes, lion fish, stone fish, cone snails, jellyfish, etc. That being said, I’ve ben swimming, snorkeling, and diving here for 3 years and have never felt unsafe or had problems. Always be cautious and aware of your surroundings. Many of these fish just got about their days and don’t even pay attention to you swimming. The waters here are beautiful and I highly recommend swimming here. Let me know if there is anything else. Thanks!