The Japanese summer has arrived with its incredible heat. Day by day, temperatures climbed steadily, until the thermometer hit the thirties mark. As a result of Japan’s desire not to exceed the Kyoto CO2 emission limits, the company do not allow for office airconditioning to go below 28°C!
As Japan is a country of islands, the sea is never far away by definition. Unfortunately, it doesn’t mean that it’s within easy reach and that it can be dived anywhere. A large population, rampant urbanization and industrialization occupy large areas of land. Far-stretched beaches of white sand are rare and on Honshu, the main island, you need to travel quite a distance to escape the crowds.
The Echizen coast is located on the northwest side of Honshu Island and faces Korea. Warm waters from the south mix with colder masses of seawater from the North in the Sea of Japan. The sea off Echizen is the home to mainly temperate water species like perches and wrasses. Octopus and crabs hide in the rocks that are covered by purple algae. Occasionally, a few tropical species like box-fishes pass by. A thermocline separates the warmer layers of water, at 26°C at the surface, from the deeper waters. At the end of the summer it is common to dive with large specimens of jelly-fish that can reach more than 50cm in diameter.
The Japanese diving culture is strongly impregnated by PADI. Commercial structures offer diving services and cater for individuals and groups of divers. If you wish, services are all-inclusive extensive and in addition to the dives, include food at lunchtime, accommodation, locker rooms, showers and even hot baths! Of course, you will have to pay for everything! In case you forgot your snorkel at home, you can easily rent one!
For the “natsu yasumi”, i.e. the summer holidays in August when the country takes a week off, I was invited by a fellow work colleague and his wife to travel with them to Shikoku Island. At Kashiwa-jima, where we dived, the temperatures of the northern Pacific waters reached 26°C. Here, the rocky seabed is covered with hard coral. Large beautiful specimens of soft corals grow at places that are exposed to the currents. The fish species are all tropical. Clown fish living in symbiosis with anemones are common. Trumpet fish hide between rocks waiting for their prey and black spotted white moray eels live under many rocks.
Most of the dives here were done in a way where all the divers on the boat just followed the dive guide. Was this the typical Japanese style of diving? To me, it resembled a guided city tour? I could imagine my dive buddy’s dilemma between gregarian and individualistic behavior, i.e. follow the group or dive with your buddy. As I was forcibly turning my attention to the soft corals near the abysses, I found myself at times left behind. When I joined them later, I realized that our group had crossed another group from a neighboring boat, composed of just as many divers as ours. The encounter had obviously caused some confusion as a few folks swam around, looking a bit lost and attempting to remember how our faces looked under the hoods and masks…
For an idea of the diving at the Echizen coast and at Kashiwa-jima, look at the pictures in the photoalbum on this website.