Yonaguni Dive Log

Dive 1:
April 7
Double Arch (point 9 on this map)
Is the clock set wrong on my computer? Did I really go in at 4:05pm?
Temp was 75 F - Warm !
Using all my own gear from home, minus the hooded vest.
Max Depth 82 feet, avg depth 42 feet.
Dive Time 31 minutes.
Visibility 60-100 feet? Very clear water.

There was a film crew aboard the boat, practicing for underwater scenes to be shot in the following weeks. It is a horror feature I am told. The female actor and the director are from Taiwan. Various other crew from Hong Kong. Many are fluent in English. The assistant director went to college in New York.
I cannot believe that, with LA only 2 days behind me, I am in Yonaguni Japan about to scuba dive with a film crew.
Aratake Kihachirou is on board to assist them, sometimes holding on to the body of the film director, who was a novice diver. Aratake is known as the discoverer of the Isseki Point ruins site, and is a Yonaguni native. Although Aratake was leading the film crew divers, I mostly stuck by Kitako's side, a young girl recently moved to Yonaguni from Nagasaki.
I do not recall any extraordinary fish. The water was dark because it was very overcast.

Dive 2:
April 7
Great Hall (point 5 on this map)
In at 5:22PM. (Really that late?)
Max dept 60 feet, avg depth 45 feet
Surface interval 44 minutes. (We dropped off the film crew at Kubura dock, and Rui and I went out alone).
Dive Time 27 minutes

Rui chased an umigame - sea turtle - and I tried to snap some pics of it, but my camera was hard to unclip and I fidgeted with it a lot. I need to figure out this whole camera rig a bit better, with spare batteries and a strobe light.
Dive times are short, and we are diving with tanks filled to only 2800 psi, rather than 3000, but I still need to work on air consumption. There were not a lot of crazy exotic fish on display - I think I only got one decent shot off - but we checked out cool geological formations, which is what this place is really known for.

Dive 3:
April 8
Anchor Point (point 8 on this map)
In the water at 9:45am.
Max depth 85 feet, avg depth 52 feet
surface interval 15 hours 55 minutes
Dive Time 33 minutes

It's raining today.
My buddy is Naomi. I developed a bit of a crush on her. She's from Hokkaido, and has been in Yonaguni for only a few months (5, I think..?)
She points out some animals to me in the rocks. A shrimp. Some strange worms under a rock that writhed around like they were mating that Naomi could not identify and I could not photogragh well (surge makes it hard to keep still enough to get a decent shot off, especially one requiring macro focus). The currents here are not the legendary strong ones I had feared from reading other bulletin posts, but maybe they are weak right now. Rui says they are nothing to really fear.
I don't remember many extraordinary sightings. No eels, or octopus, or hammerheads. We are diving a lot around the same area.
Each time we surface, the staff serves delicious sweet barley tea. Many people shiver and complain about the cold. "Samui!" Even Nao, who is from snowy Hokkaido. I don't feel cold, even though it is pouring rain, but the barley tea still feels good going down.

Dive 4
April 8
Ishibutai (Stone Stage) (point 20 on this map)
In the water at 11:15am.
Max depth 61 feet, avg depth 39 feet
surface interval 55 minutes
Dive Time 37 minutes

We went further east up the south coast of the island, toward Tatigami Iwa (which translates to Standing God Rock, because it looks vaguely like a human shape standing up out of the waves).
We moved from the first site pretty quickly, slapped new tanks on and jumped in without wasting any time. The waves were pretty choppy so the crew tried to get everybody off the boat quick. It was a little tough with the film crew on board. Rui and Keizen hate them.
Nao and I split off on our own again, first stopping by the Jacques Mayol memorial plaque. Mayol was the famous free diver whose life was ficitionalized in the Luc Besson film, "The Big Blue." He was friends with Aratake and spent a fair amount of time diving around Yonaguni.
Rui mentioned that there was a stone here that resembled a human face, perhaps carved by ancient people like the ruins of Isseki Point. I failed to notice it. Haha.
However, the rocks here DID appear to be carved into right angles, much like the rocks at Isseki. Which made me think that the ruins might not be man-made. If the right-angled rocks were in several places, it was possible that they could be naturally-ocurring. On the other hand, if they were man-made, it's feasible that the people who made them could have traveled another few hundered meters west and carved more trenches.
Over some awamori, Keizen said that Aratake carved the ruins. Haha.
Keizen Rocks.

Dive 5
April 8
Isseki Point - The Yonaguni Ruins (point 17 on this map)
In the water at 3:05pm.
Max depth 50 feet, avg depth 30 feet
surface interval 3 hours, 12 minutes
Dive Time 35 minutes

This is it. The ruins site. This is what convinced me that I had to come all the way west to Yonaguni for diving. There's so much information on the web speculating on what the origins of these stones is. I think the guy I met at Ishigaki airport, Ishida, said it best; "Jibun no me de kimete." The currents were nowhere near as bad as I'd expected, based on other peoples' accounts on blogs and bulletin boards. Maybe it was a light day. But it did get quite strong near the east steps of the "Main Terrace." All divers had to grab on to the bottom "step" to get a look at the stones. When we were ready to move on as a group, we let go and one by one drifted away over towards the east side of the structure, where we got a good look at the "Turtle Monument." They are mysterious stones. I don't know what to make of them. I am no more a geologist than a marine biologist: I am often unable to identify the types of fish I see, just as I am ill-equipped to make much a of judgment on the source of the geometry in those rocks.
In the narrow crevice between the "Twin Pillars" after passing under the "Gate," we spotted a moray eel. Unfortunately, my shots were blurry and without flash.

Dive 6
April 8
SaWes Palace (point 7 on this map)
In the water at 4:44pm.
Max depth 54 feet, avg depth 38 feet
surface interval 1 hour 3 minutes
Dive Time 32 minutes

This was to be my last dive in Yonaguni. Sad. Hopefully only until next year.