Yaeyama islands : heavenly beautiful, peaceful, and quiet.

Previously on this blog, I talked about Ishigaki island.

What is Ishigaki island like? Where is it? Why am I so fascinated with it? 4 trips there in the last 2 years!

Ishigaki island is one of the major islands of Okinawa prefecture aside from the Okinawa mainland. 3 hours flight from Tokyo. you can find promotional tickets for tourists from overseas on the official ANA or JAL websites. Let me tell you about its attractions one by one. Surely the ocean is one of the best in the world.

In the summer of 2017, I visited Ishigaki for the first time, and my first impression of it was very rural. However, now I feel that Ishigaki is very urbanised and developed after staying for 4 nights on some of the Yaeyama islands.

I have been to most of the Yaeyama islands, and each one has its own unique features and beauty. You shouldn’t leave Ishigaki island without visiting some of them.

Access to the islands – 10~90 minutes from Ishigaki by Ferry

You can get to the port from Ishigaki airport within 40 minutes by bus. The closest one is Taketomi which is only 10~15 minutes away, and the furthest is Hateruma which takes at least 90 minutes (depending on the type of ferry, the small type is faster).

You can get to the port from Ishigaki airport within 40 minutes by bus.

There are different counters for the tickets, but the An-ei Kanko (the counter in the pic) is the best unless you want to sign up for a package tour.

I will post about each island specifically, and I will also include the fees and time tables in each article.

Today, I will just give you a brief idea of what these islands are like.

Taketomi island – the closest to Ishigaki, 10~15 minutes away. The traditional style of village is well preserved.

Taketomi island is the closest to Ishigaki. It takes only 10~15 minutes by ferry, which runs every 30 minutes from 7:30 to 18:00. Therefore, it’s the most popular island.

You can rent a bike to discover the island

Another option is to ride a cart pulled by a water buffalo. The coachman also plays music to you on a traditional string instrument. It looks very relaxing.

And this beach! (Kondoi beach)

Iriomote island – even bigger than Ishigaki, 40~50 minutes away. It has a lot of rare animal and plant species

Iriomote island is the most famous and the largest of the Yaeyama islands. It boasts a lot of rare species like the Iriomote cat, which is a subspecies of leopard.

There are many options for you on this island, but the most popular activities are probably trekking to the falls, or riding a canoe in a mangrove jungle.

Unfortunately, I haven’t experienced these activities, but I participated in a cruise tour of the Nakama river, and it was fun! (1,800 JPY/ May 2019)

We somehow ended up at a little-visited beach called Idanohama.

We greatly enjoyed swimming with this turtle! My friend found it just 10m off the beach (she is not a good swimmer), then I joined them!

Kuroshima island – popular with snorkelers, the fishes are used to people but be careful!!

This year, I finally landed on Kuroshima island. I first became interested in this island when someone referred to its beach as a snorkeler’s paradise.

It was good. We also enjoyed the bike ride to the beach, on which we saw many cows.

We did not bring a life jacket because it’s not convenient for riding a bike to the beach, and expected to rent one from the municipal cabin at the side of the beach (I saw the info on their website). However, the cabin was closed – perhaps because it was Saturday…

After all, we were able to see a lot of fish even though we did not go far. I cannot judge this beach properly from this experience, but I think you can see many fish off Yonehara beach on Ishigaki island as here, so I’m not personally interested in visiting again.

This beach is also infamous for its aggressive titan triggerfish, which might bite you. Luckily we did not see any! I was actually frightened all the time, so I couldn’t explore much. Considering all this, I’m not sure that it is worth the time and cost of the ferry…

Anyway, I will write in more detail about this island later – with more pics – to let you judge!

Hateruma island – the southernmost island of Japan, where you can easily find sea turtles!

Hateruma is the southernmost island of Japan. It takes at least 90 minutes from Ishigaki island and the ferries are often cancelled due to bad weather, so a stay on this island is really invaluable.

I visited there just for a day trip from Ishigaki Island last year, and I really hated to leave after staying for just 7 hours (Maximum). Thus I decided to stay there 2 nights this year, and it was a truly fabulous experience!

This beach, Nishi-hama was once selected as “the most beautiful beach in Japan”.

Most of the time, I was snorkeling off this beach, and I found 4 turtles in total!

you can see how shallow the tide is, so it was quite easy to find them.

Hatoma island – inhabited by 60 people, less than 1 km in diameter, and the sea is outstandingly beautiful

I stopped on Hatoma island for lunch as part of a one day snorkeling tour.

Since my reason for joining the tour was snorkeling, I didn’t expect that much from the island. In fact, I had not heard of the island before, so I was actually overwhelmed by the beauty of the scenery I experienced there.

Simply, beautiful. I couldn’t believe it was real!

Hama island, Barasu island…they appear only when the tide is low, you can land by a tour boat

You can opt for some tours that include these islands, which only appears when the tide is low.

I participated in a snorkeling tour in December in 2017, and they took us to Hama island, which is also called “Maboroshi no shima (Phantom island)” .
It was cloudy as usual in winter, but so fantastical.