renovate post 22 Q 4 2006 part 3 Miyako Shima

 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)