Cycling & Dolphin Swim @ Miyakejima (Jul 29-Aug 2, 2022)
There are several volcanic islands in Tokyo Prefecture, usually called the Izu Islands. They are accessible by Passenger Ships, high-speed jets or aircrafts, in a matter of hours, quite convenience to visit from Tokyo area.
This time, my family decided to visit Miyakejima for summer vacation, for it is one of the islands where “dolphin swim” is available.
Again, we decided to go & return by Passenger ships (https://www.tokaikisen.co.jp/en/), since it is the cheapest choice. Also, we can enjoy the amazing night view of Tokyo Bay from the Passenger ship, and spend the 1st night on the ship, arrive on early morning!
We arrived the Tokyo Takeshiba Port early, had dinner in a little restaurant inside the waiting hall, to wait for late departure at 10:30PM on Friday night. As it was Summer, there were many people go to Izu Islands for fishing or diving. Many people carry heavy equipments and suitcases.
Our 2nd class room is just a simple room where you can sleep on the floor, electric outlets and lockers are available in the room, and they can put families (both male & female) in the same room, which is nice.
Next morning we arrived around 5am. It was too early even though the day was already bright, we were all lack of sleep… We already researched that there are shuttle buses taking people from the arrival port to other locations, right after arrival of the morning ship, so we wasted no time to catch it, as there is only one place serving early morning breakfast buffet in Miyakejima — Hotel Kairaku. This is probably where everybody goes, because nothing else opens this early!
Fortunately, Hotel Kairaku has many sofas in their lobby. I guess they are used to people spending time there waiting for other places to open… We drank coffee & took a nap there.
We had reserved electric bicycles to go around Miyakejima (roughly 32km) on our 1st day, from Miyakejima Tourist Association office, which is just 1min. walk from Hotel Kairaku, but it only opens at 9am!
It was such a hot sunny day, even with the electric bicycle, it was hard work. However, volcanic islands are usually hilly. Electric bikes do make it so much easier, and we can stop anywhere we want to take pictures. It is great to be around nature.
We visited a few popular spots, such as Tairo-ike Pond, but we had no luck catching a view of any wild birds (especially the famous “akakkoko”, red cockoo) or sea turtles. However, there were many interesting-looking ancient trees around. Also, we saw “itatsi” (Japanese weasel) crossing the roads or brushes couple times. They are so cute & fast, but occasionally run over by cars…
After going around the island, we returned the bikes, and walked to the nearby hotspring, the only hotspring in the island, called “Furusato-no-yu”. It costs a reasonable JPY 500 per person. It has an outdoor onsen, and the onsen water is muddy brown because of volcanic minerals.
We reserved to camp at Okubohama Campsite for all 3 nights, so we took a bus to the campsite after visiting the hotspring.
The view from the campsite was great, it was in front of the beach, so we could see sunset from beach while we set up our tent. However, the campsite was full of mosquitoes!! It was so unbearable that we couldn’t even eat our dinner outside in peace… Also, somehow the sea wind could not reach the campsite, so it was unbelievably hot!! Even though there was cold water shower & toilet, the shower was in the open. It was so hot & sweaty to sleep in the tent. After just one night, we all got heat rash, and could not bear another night…
It was so hot that I took my air mat to sleep on the concrete floor of the quiet parking lot. The parking lot was right next to the beach, so there was constantly sea wind blowing and sound of waves. Also, the island was dark enough and the sky was clear that I could see the sky full of stars, even the milkyway could be seen. It felt amazing lying face up to the night sky… Yet, occasionally there were still cars passing by, and some people playing fireworks even at late night. It didn’t feel safe enough to sleep in the parking lot… so after an hour or so, I sadly moved my air mat back into the stinky hot tent to sleep.
Next morning, we had the shop staffs picking us up by car from the campsite to our main activity — dolphin swim!! We knew that we had to take a boat out to the sea, so we all drank “motion sickness pills” in advance. It turned out to be the most important decision!!
First, the shop staffs drove us to their shop for preparation, wetsuit and equipment rental etc. Then, we had snorkeling practice at nearby shore in the morning, returned to the shop for lunch, and headed out by boat for dolphin swim.
I thought we had done snorkeling plenty of times by ourselves, we need no practice, but the staff actually tried to teach us to how to “free dive”. It was indeed something that I couldn’t do before. I ended up learning a lot in one morning! By the end of the practice, I could actually managed to free dive up to 5-6m deep. Unfortunately, I could not remove the air pressure from my ears, so I could not go any deeper. Also, it is always scary to dive deeper, worry that you may not have enough air to return…
My hubby could do much deeper and longer, more or less 10m or so. Hubby said, maybe the band of my mask was so tight, which prevent pressure balance of my ears. I wish I could have more chance to practice…
We had a relaxing lunch under the sun. Somehow warm handmade lunchbox from local shop taste great, must be because of the environment.
The shop rented a fishing boat to take us out. The front of the boat had sheltered benches, while the rear of the boat was open space, where we waited to jump into the water. It took almost an hour to get to another remote island, where they said there were over 200 wild dolphins living there.
Therefore, unlike what we had experienced in Cebu during whale shark swim, this shop (so as other shops in Miyake Island) do not attract the wild dolphins with foods or capture them for the customers, we just have to “look for” and “follow” the wild dolphins, which makes it quite difficult, even though it is better for the dolphins.
The waves & sun were both strong that day. The boat was waving a lot, soon some people, including my daughter, started to have seasick. We saw a few dolphins jumping out of water near our boat, so it was so fast to capture by our camera. When we got near the island, the captain turned down the engine, we all moved to rear of the boat, and started searching for dolphins. We were at the “standby” mode for quite long, jumped into water 3 times, but only saw dolphins under water once. I did took a video of it, but it was so short like 10sec. The wild dolphins did not play with us, they just swam by and gone!
The shop said that usually there were much more dolphins than that day. Perhaps it was because of summer, water temperature was too high, etc. Anyway, my daughter was so seasick that she puked. In the end, she couldn’t get into water at all. Also, we all had sunburnt, because of staying at the rear of the boat for too long. It was good experience, and we did see & swim with the wild dolphins, but somewhat different from what we imagined…
Due to last night’s nightmare with the campsite, we must find other place to stay… We discussed with the dolphin swim shop, and they let us stay in their guestroom. They also drove us to pack up my tent & stuffs from the campsite after dolphin swim. The guestroom was quite spacious, and has A/C and clean futons. The shop also has shower room, washer & dryer, microwave, free drink corner etc. It was a comfortable place to stay.
Also, the shop told us about “Shimapo”. It is a prepaid discount points, which can be used in all the Izu Islands. You have to register and buy the points online, but you can get JPY 10,000 points by paying JPY 7,000, so roughly 42% more!! We bought Shimapo points to pay for our dolphin swim and all the accomodations. It was a good deal.
The next day, we moved to Hotel Kairaku (where we had early morning breakfast on the 1st day). It was really a hotel, so very comfortable. It was another very hot day, and to be honest, there was not much around in the Island, just a few shops, but the foods were all quite expensive and lack of choices, because everything in the island were imported by ships. We couldn’t even find a place for lunch, in walking distance. Soon we retreated into our A/C room to wait until the sun set. Fortunately, dinner & breakfast were provided by hotel, and they were quite rich. We even got to try the local dragon fruit!
Then, we walked to the nearby beach to watch sunset. It was peaceful & nice. Miyake Island is a live volcanic island. The sand on the beaches were black. The stones & rocks were mostly black or redish color.
The “Ako Lava Trail” was just 30min walk from Hotel Kairaku, so I took a walk there the next morning, before the day became hot. There was also “Megane-iwa Rock”, which was my favorite feature. I had been there at least 3 times. It was fascinating to see the strong waves hitting the interesting-looking rocks back and forth. I could stare at that all day. Also, the “Ako Lava Trail” was like walking on another planet. It was amazing to see just the sky and the ground, nothing else.
At the end of “Ako Lava Trail”, you can see a school being damaged by 1983 lava flow. It was quite a view, to show us how mother nature is unstoppable…
The last day was a really slow day. We just packed and take the Passenger ship to return to Tokyo in the afternoon. I like the Passenger ship. It was very comfortable, affortable and convenience. I highly recommend it, and hopefully we’ll visit another of the Izu Islands soon… Definitely not in Summer!!
