WE VISIT NEARBY TAKETOMI ISLAND
17.01.2025
Unfortunately Youko is still not well, so Nana has taken her to the doctor. We are hoping she is okay, but she has already decided she doesn’t want to come to Taketomi island with the rest of us.
By Mid morning Nana texted us to let us know that Youko has not got COVID or the flu, which is exactly the same diagnosis as they gave me in Shunan and I’m still coughing. The doctor who saw Youko prescribed some medicine for her, and is now resting at the hotel.
With Youko settled in her room, the rest of us took off to the dockland area and bought four return tickets for the Taketomi ferry. It is only a 15 minute trip in a large twin hulled boat that is only one year old and travels very fast. It can easily take around 50-60 passengers. Even though there was a strong wind blowing and a bit of a swell, I thought the run out to the island went pretty smoothly considering the weather.
Mami had already decided we all, that’s Mami, Nana, Yoshi and I, would be getting around the island on push bikes. She is right of course, but I have only ridden a bike twice in the last 40 years and I bet even longer for Yoshi. We had all agreed with the boss’ idea, so you will hear the results of our bicycling trip as I write.
We picked the smallest bus at the ferry terminal to take us back to their office where they hire bikes for 2000Y a day, which is $8000Y ($80) for the four of us. We all picked our bikes and I had to have the seat adjusted by one of the workers as I am tall compared to most of their customers.
It didn’t take us long to get the feel of riding a pushbike again, as well as getting the competitive juices working. Nana started to threaten my leadership of the peleton! I couldn’t believe it. All I could do was put my bike in a lower gear and I left her eating my dust. Trouble is, I had to stop, as I had not consulted the boss on where we were actually headed. My fault … but I did beat Nana.
We stopped for lunch at a very old restaurant with timber frame, timber wall planks and a timber roof. Mami, Nana and Yoshi ordered Okinawa noodles and I ordered curried rice as it was the only curry meal they had. I asked what vegetables it had and the reply was “the usual ones”. I was last to get my meal and it basically had half a bowl of cooked rice and curry cubes from a packet of Golden Curry. I guess the usual on Taketomi means no vegetables at all!! Nada, nothing, zip.
With full stomachs, we got back on our bike. The Taketomi island covers 5.42 square kilometres, and runs 2.7 kilometres east to west and 3.4 kilometres north to south. Most of the riding path was flat. We stopped at three beaches and spent the most time at the last beach because Nana wanted to search for star-shaped sand.
This rare and fascinating form of sand, known as Hoshi no suna, is both a visual wonder and a scientific marvel. Each tiny star is the exoskeleton of Foraminifera, microscopic, single-celled organisms. While the sand itself is no longer alive, it was once part of these living creatures that thrived in the Pacific Ocean. Over time, the remains of these organisms, along with coral fragments, combined to create the unique star-shaped sand found on Okinawa’s beaches.
In amongst the trillion trillions of grains of sea sand on this beach, we managed to find, with careful searching, just 5 genuine stars and a couple of near misses. Amazing effort. My contribution to the hunt was a big fat zero, Mami, Nana and Yoshi all had a share of the five genuine contributions.
Happy with our day, we cycled back to the bike depot (I’m pretty sure I beat everyone else) and got a big surprise. The young guy who got the bikes out for us and fixed the height of the seats, returned half of the 8000Y we paid as we had only had the bikes for half the time we had paid for. Unbelievable. I was shocked and so was everyone else. As we walked back to the pier where our boat was due in 25 minutes, I couldn’t get over the gesture by this young man. Acts of kindness like this stay with you and make the world a better place.
The trip back was smooth and fast, with us disembarking 15 minutes later at Ishigaki Pier. It has been a great day but we are all feeling a bit weary after all of the cycling we did.
We dropped Yoshi off at a sauna/onsen on the way back, then stopped to buy some dinner at a supermarket which we will share with Youko when we get back to the hotel. Youko is still not feeling brilliant but she did eat well with the food we brought back. Lets hope she is well enough to enjoy our last full on day on Ishigaki.
