Iriomote Island Beaches

 

As of this posting, we are "enjoying" an unusually early cold and snowy spell, so these images are for the rest of you in the northern hemisphere right now.

Iriomote is a fairly large island in the Ishigaki Islands, not far from the coast of Taiwan. In fact it is the second largest island in all of the Okinawas.

Most of the island is fairly dense jungle and mangrove swamp and is home to the Iriomote Wild Cat.

The island is sparsely populated and lives along the single coastal road that covers about 2/3 of the coastline.

Iriomote has a lot of fine beaches and coastline suitable for snorkelling.

It also has a fair amount of coastal mangrove groves.

The most famous beach is called Starsand Beach because among the sand you can find tiny star-shaped grains.

These pics were taken in April, well outside the tourist season and so mostly deserted.

The previous post was on the water buffalo carts of Yubu Island.

Kotogahama Beach

 

After leaving the confines of Tomogaura there is a long stretch of nice beach that stretches about one and a half kilometrers.

Kotogahama Beach is actually one of the nicest beaches in Shimane, but because it is fairly remote with little in the way of parking spaces and the town of Maji has few accommodation options, it is not crowded even in the short summer season of Japanese beaches.

This was the third leg of my deep exploration walk along the coast in mid-October. Actually, there are much nicer photographs in a post I did on sunset at Kotogahama Beach.

Kotogahama Beach is famous for its "singing sand", that squeaks when you walk on it. Not far away is the Nima Sand Museum which was built to celebrate this sand.

From here I hopped on a train and headed home. The last two photos are from when I started the next leg of my walk a couple of weeks later.

The previous post was the Tomogaura Tomokan, a historical building.

Some Beaches of Ishigaki Island

Ishigaki 石垣島

Ishigaki Island is officially part of Okinawa, though it lies closer to Taiwan than to the main island of Okinawa.

It is one of the Yaeyama Islands, in fact, the second largest, though it is the most populated and the most important nearby Iriomote Island is larger, but is mostly uninhabited 

.

Other than Taketomi island with its traditional village and water buffalo cart rides, the main attraction of the Yaeyama islands are the beaches and the related activities of swimming, snorkeling, kayaking, etc

When we visited it was in April, out of season, with overcast skies, so the beaches were deserted.

While this means the beaches were not as colorful, they were in fact quite beautiful.

The previous post in this series was the evocative Tojin Memorial.

Buy Ishigaki Salt from Japan

Fukumitsu Beach

 

About one kilometer further on from Imaura Harbour, I reached the beach at Fukumitsu.

On a sunny day, when the sky is blue, the calm sea turquoise, and the beach golden, its quite pretty. Popular with surfers and local summer bathers.

On an overcast day in the aftermath of a storm, it's not so pretty.

Fukumotsu is not a fishuing village. It has no harbour. It's an agricultural village,farming the river valley that snakes up towards Ginzan. This was all land controlled directly by the Shogunate in Edo, and Fukumitsu would have been prosperous supplying food to the mine.

Taketomi Beaches

Taketomi

Taketomi Island, a small island a few kilometers from the larger Ishigaki island in what is now Okinawa Prefecture, is a very popular tourist site that visitors come to primarily to see the picturesque traditional village, and to take a ride in a cart pulled by water buffalo.

However the island also has a couple of rather nice beaches, one a little rocky, the oyjer with fine white sand.

We visited in April, out of season, and so the beaches were deserted. Also it was an overcast day so the colors are not so spectacular.

At low tide, it seemed too shallow for swimming or snorkeling for quite a ways out.

This gentleman was off collecting something, maybe a type of seaweed, maybe shellfish.....

Ishigaki Sea Salt

Buy Ishigaki Bath Salts from Japan

Takeno

Japan has almost 30,000 kilometers of coastline, which ranks it 7th in the world, so it is not surprising that it has thousands of coastal settlements. Takeno is a small town on the Sea of Japan coast in Hyogo.

There is a lovely, white sandy beach that is popular in the summer. Takeno is part of the UNESCO San'in Kaigan Global Geopark.

Now still operating as a fishing harbor, in former times it was a stop along the Kitamaebune trade route that ran all the way down the Japan Sea Coast from Hokkaido, round through the straits at Shimonoseki and then through the Inland Sea to Osaka.

In many ways it is typical of such seaside villages, with narrow alleys between weatherbeaten wooden houses. Pleasant enough for a stroll and exploration

Isotake Beach

Isotake Beach

Day three of my walk along the Iwami Kannon Pilgrimage, and to get from the outskirts of the village of Isotake to the harbor and main part of the village I decided to cross the main road and walk along the beach.

We have a lot of nice beaches in the Iwami area, and this one is not bad.

As is normal there was some stuff washed up. Mostly floats and bits of rope... stuff from fishing boats usually.

Isotake is named after Isotakeru, one of the sons of the great Izumo deity Susano. According to the myth Susano and Isotakeru arrived here from the Korean Peninsula, and the shrine at the harbor has more details...

Of course it wouldn't be a Japanese beach without tetrapods...

A Walk Along The Japan Sea Coast part 5 Asari Beach

Asari Beach

The second leg of my walk exploring the beaches and coves of the Japan Sea coast began at Asari, with its white sand beach. Actually, access to the beach is not easy at the dunes behind the beach are covered in factories and other industrial sites.

Most of these factories are extracting the sand, some for use in construction, but one of the factories is processing the sand to make moulds for casting car engine blocks. I once helped an employee who had to give a presentation at a conference in the US and I learned more about the science of sand than I really wanted to know.

The most notable feature of the beach is the wind generators, which also stretch to the next beach and are also located on the hills behind Gotsu. Interestingly the generators are Danish and the steel towers are Korean.

A typhoon had passed by the day before and so it was quite windy and wild with lots of waves. On a still, sunny day the sea is usually turquoise. At the far eastern end of the beach it is actually a park, but there ais absolutely no infrastructure or facilities...... the park being just a kind of classification.