Like 15
years ago, the trip from Keramo Retto to Miyako Jima was a pleasant one.
Light
seas, nice breeze and beautiful skies….
Wow if sailing was always like this…
By
sunrise we spotted land and a few hours later we tied Alishan alongside the
wharf in Ikema Port. It took the officials only 20
minutes to spot us;-)) Not many foreign yachts come here (2 or 3 a year) But all paperwork was okay and the good times
could start.
Ikema Port is on a small island at the
northern tip of Miyako Jima. Since our visit 15 years ago the island had gotten
a bridge connection to the “main land”, thus it became crowded! They even had
to install a traffic light! However, the
crowds prefer the summer months apparently, because was still that tranquilly
“island” as we remembered it.
John
and Naomi from Okinawa had given us the phone number
of Naomi’s niece Sayaka, who lives here on the main island. She had already been informed (ahum, instructed)
to look after us ...and so she did. The
next day she took us all over the island to show us the nice spots, the
supermarkets, (did we again have to do all that shopping?) and so on.
Remarkable was that all over the island we would find road signs to the
airport; it is located dead center of the island.
Sayaka, with son Leon
Lunch: Island style with local island music
What
was for lunch? Looks yummy, and so it was: Goya Champuru
Goya,
Okinawa’s vegetable, which can be bitter as
hell, stir fried with tofu, egg and SPAM. Okay that last one can be left aside,
but it does flavor the food.
We
were even allowed to have her car for a day or 2. Nice isn’t it? Mind you
Miyako Jima isn’t that big, but the main town was just too far away. Besides,
the on board internet connection didn’t work so we had to take the laptop into
town to check our email, the weather etc. (just the last 2 days of our stay I
found out that the on board internet connection DID when we took the laptop on
deck near the mast…OK if it didn’t rain;-))
Miyako
Jima is green, that is, it’s very green as there are a lot of sugar cane fields.
Water is NO Problem as there is plenty of spring-water. Besides the sugar cane
there is a lot of cattle farming (btw, all calves are shipped to Japan’s
mainland for further fattening) And
Miyako is famous for its coral, so there is plenty of diving tourism. It is one
of the nicer islands of the Ryukyu chain. It has no mountains, so it’s good for
cycling, and…. NO SNAKES!
Why???
Read
here more about mysterious Miyako Jima…and come back.
http://www.wonder-okinawa.jp/005/e/way/01.html
Anyway,
what did we do all day?
Well
Marijke continued her shelling, snorkeling and beach combing and Jaap went for
the odd run over the island. Of course some boat jobs were done, like filling
water tanks, oil changes (2 engines, pfff), cleaning the SS on deck. Do you
think I wish I had a proper job?
Of
course the outboard engine got a service job: blocked up carburetor due to lack
of use! Hope to avoid that problem in the future…keep on cruising J
And
we met up with a lot of great people resulting in a couple of good feeds
together. For sure we have to mention Chikako, who runs a catering service on
the island…weren’t we lucky!
Marijke
had met Chikako once in Fukuoka,
when she flew over with a sick dog. She came to the harbor to say hello and took
us to a local produce market. There she explained what to do with and how to
cook the strange looking island veggies. Like the one with thick leathery
leaves with a name that translates as “medicine of 100 southern clouds and
others that we call airplane beans and spongy cucumbers, yuck! Unless you know
what to do with them. And she knows. Chikako also makes and sells mango jam and
dukkah, both made with local ingredients. Dukkah comes from the Middle East and is a nutty type dip for bread. Try it,
it’s tasty and easy: just dip a piece of bread in olive oil, then in the dukkah
– and eat. Good with beer or wine. But also nice as a topping on salad, fish,
meat or tofu. It comes in hot and mild.
We hired (for some cookies) one of the local village dogs to keep Nori and Wakame on board. The cats didn’t like it, but they must have thought: Hey doggy-boy, you get cookies, but we are out of the rain…
During
our stay we didn’t see much sunshine (real autumn weather) and it was very windy
most of the days…but then one day it all looked okay so we left for another
overnight sail to… Ishigaki Shima. (By now you’ve probably figured it out:
shima or jima means island)
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