Last Night in Yonaguni

Tomorrow I move on to Iriomote, via Ishigaki airport.
My original purpose in coming here was to dive at the ruins, which I did, but I spent all day today sightseeing around the island by moped, which was equally great.
I noticed that at 8am and 7pm, a loudspeaker plays a 30second or so melodic chime, the kind which is familiar in many places in Japan, such as train stations. The chime reminds me of an alarm clock, one to start the day and one to signal that the day is over. I want to ask someone what it is for. I took a video of it with sound from my balcony.
I don't seem to need an alarm clock here though, not like I would in LA. I am somewhere in between LA time and Yaeyama time. I get tired around 10pm and wake up around 3am, but can kinda coast through 4 hours of stage one REM dozing.
Yesterday morning I woke up super early, maybe 2am, and dozed for the next 4.5 or 5 hours. Diving the previous day had been great, and I was wondering if the day's dives would include a trip to Isseki Point - the ruins I had come here to see. Depending on the weather, the crew would make the call as to where the dives would be.
I should say that in the weeks leading up to coming here, I was a little terrified of this dive, having read nothing but how strong the currents were and how it was definately not a destination recommended for anyone but the most experienced of divers, which I am not. But Saturday's dives had calmed my nerves and gotten me excited about the possibility of getting to see the ruins.
The water here is crystal clear, although visibility was not great because it has been so overcast. Mostly that just makes for darker water, it did not affect clarity. The sea was relatively calm when we were at the various dive sites, but it got fun when we were making our way in and out of Kubura Port. The cliff overlooking the port is home to one of Yonaguni's two lighthouses and is famed for being Japan's western-most point. As the boat neared this point and rounded it into the port, the waves would surge up and down pretty high and the boat would toss like a rollercoaster, dropping your stomach out from under you and sending plumes of spray into to air to wash over your entire body. A couple times, a huge wave would come from behind the boat and overtake us, flooding water onto the deck. It was a little hairy at first, but I started enjoying it. I was still in my wetsuit and half the time it was pouring rain anyway, so I just hung on and watched the black waves crash against the black rocks and turn into white spray and foam.
I did three dives on Saturday, the last one with just Rui, who is kinda the lead guy under Aratake it seems.
Sunday, I did four dives, with the third at Isseki Point. All day I followed Naomi, who moved to Yonaguni from Hokkaido, but thinks that it is cold here! (Hokkaido is in the far north of Japan and famous for being snowy and cold). I told her to come to California to dive so that she could experience what cold water diving is really like. A couple of weeks before I came here, I dived at Catalina and the water was about 55 degrees F. Here, it is about 75.
I am really happy that I got to see the ruins. While I was waiting at Ishigaki airport, speaking in broken Japanese with Ishida, I asked him whether he thought the ruins were really man-made ruins, or a natural geologic formation. Experts estimate that the stone is 8,000 years old, which predates any known recorded human history. Ishida laughed and said, "Jibun no me de kimete." Look for yourself and see what you think. After having been there and seen it, I cannot really say. Before Isseki Point, we dived at another site which had very similar geometrically cut stone. It's possible that if the Isseki site was man-made, there could be other areas around Yonaguni that would have been made by the same prehistoric people. But seeing other stones which resembled the ones at Isseki Point made me think that, fantastic as it may be, perhaps these are a remarkable creation of nature. I don't think it lessens the appeal of the place to think that they are not man-made stones. It is fun to speculate about mythical cities like Atlanatis, or Mu, or other lost continent stories though.
When the day's diving was done, we got cleaned up at the SaWes shop and I told Keizen that I wanted to go drink awamori. Luckily for me, he agreed and later I went to a great restaurant with him, the boat captain (another name I forgot, OUCH!) and Naomi. I must say that whether the ruins turned out to be ruins or not, discovering this group of people was the real find of the trip to Yonaguni. I could not have met better hosts, more gracious or more fun. Keizen is a lot of fun to drink with, and he introduced me to the proprietress of the restaurant, who he said is "not the mafia Godfather, but the Godmother of Yonaguni." She was incredibly gracious to me, giving me not one, but two bottles of special awamori. I wanted to drink them with the crew, but they would not let me open them up. (Awamori is a potent alcohol that is unique to the Okinawan islands. There were many distilleries throughout the Yaeyamas, but I never made it to visit any of them. The bottle I was given was the brand Awanami, which is made in Hateruma, and is difficult to purchase because it is so sought after).
Haning out with the SaWes crew was one of my best memories of the trip. I don't know how to repay them, but hopefully one or more will come to LA to visit sometime.
I want to write more, since there is time at the moment, but the proprietress of the internet cafe is finishing cleaning up and the 9pm closing time is approaching. We are listening to Japanese R&B/hip-hop again.
Some other time I will recount today's adventures on the moped and my meeting with Ikema Nae, one of the coolest women I've ever met who runs a museum out of her house and who gave me a book that she wrote.
I wanted to hang out with the SaWes crew again, but they are not to be found today. Tomorrow, I'll go on to Iriomote and hopefully more great people and cool stuff to see and do.
Good bye Yonaguni. Some of the world's best people are here, at Japan's land's end.