Okinawa has become an incredibly popular travel destination in recent years. It's only about an hour and a half by plane from Taiwan — closer, in fact, than Japan's main islands. When people think of visiting Japan, shopping and drugstores usually come to mind first, but Okinawa adds a tropical island vibe and a wealth of water activities to the mix — scuba diving very much included. And yet, diving on Okinawa's main island remains surprisingly unfamiliar compared to the go-to overseas dive destinations favored by Taiwanese divers, such as Indonesia, Thailand, and the Philippines. Search "Okinawa diving" in Chinese and you'll mostly find posts about a single dive site — the 青の洞窟 (Blue Cave) — or the Kerama Islands, celebrated for what locals call "Kerama Blue."
What Hidden Dive Gems Does Okinawa Have to Offer?
Diving activity on both the Okinawa main island and its outlying islands is actually extremely vibrant, with a wealth of dive sites to explore. Beyond the absurdly popular Blue Cave, the main island alone — from south to north — offers sites such as Ginowan, Sunabe, Zanpa Cape, Manza, Sakimoto, Nago Bay, Oura Bay, Kin, Minna Island, Hedo Cape… and the list goes on. Each area branches further into two to six distinct dive sites. Add the outer islands — Kerama, Miyakojima, Ishigaki, the Amami Islands (historically part of the Ryukyu Kingdom; though just north of Okinawa, they now fall under Kagoshima Prefecture), Aguni Island, Yonaguni, and more — and the options are truly endless. Every dive site in Okinawa has its own distinct character.
Let me take the shore dive site I work at most — Sunabe — as an example:
Beyond a photogenic underwater Japanese mailbox, Sunabe features an almost continuous soft and hard coral reef stretching roughly one kilometre along the coast, with remarkably high coral coverage. Around 200 coral species have been recorded in Okinawan waters, and during one intro dive at Sunabe I casually counted over 40 different species just off the top of my head! (Sadly, Typhoon Trami at the end of September 2018 caused some irreparable damage to parts of the reef.)
Sunabe Coral Sea
Mr. Cuttlefish
Sunabe is a dive site that suits divers of all levels, year-round. Maximum depth is only around 20m depending on the tide, and the most beautiful coral formations are concentrated between 4 and 10 metres. Setting aside the increasingly severe typhoon problem in recent summers, the topography makes Sunabe virtually current-free (at most a mild offshore current). With the right wind direction, swells are manageable in both summer and winter — mirror-calm water is actually common (though there are days when conditions are too rough to dive, especially in winter, though it's nothing like the battering Taiwan's dive sites take from the northeast monsoon).
Summer water temperatures can reach 30°C (fingers crossed they don't climb any higher — the corals are already struggling), while winter temperatures sit around 21–23°C. In terms of marine life: while you're all but guaranteed to encounter a storm of barracuda, there aren't the sweeping fish aggregations you'd see elsewhere, nor the macro diversity of Taiwan's dive sites — but Whitetip Reef Sharks, blue-ringed octopus, and leaf scorpionfish are all regular residents at Sunabe.
Elsewhere on the main island and outer islands, dive site options include hard coral gardens with visibility starting at 30m, seemingly endless cave systems, wreck diving, underwater ruins, and stalactite caves where fresh and salt water meet. Marine life ranges from all manner of tropical fish, sea turtles, and Whitetip Reef Sharks to Hammerhead Sharks, trevally storms, and sardine baitballs. Larger pelagics include eagle rays, manta rays, and Blacktip Reef Sharks; in winter there's even a chance of encountering whales, and with extraordinary luck, dolphins too (Japan also has Mikurajima in Tokyo for dedicated dolphin encounters). The Kuroshio Current's blessings extend well beyond Taiwan's waters alone.
I've been working in Okinawa since 2017 and am heading into my third dive season. Though still a relatively new instructor, I've developed a few thoughts on why this destination flies so far under the radar. Here is my entirely unofficial rundown:
1. The Language Barrier
It's no secret that English proficiency in Japan is generally limited, and joining a local dive operation almost always requires a dive guide — with some shops unwilling to rent tanks without one. Japanese operators are meticulous by nature: if they can't confirm you've understood the pre-dive briefing, many will simply refuse to take you in the water. As a result, most dive shops will ask about your language ability before confirming a booking, and non-Japanese speakers can find themselves turned away.
The market at Sunabe, for instance, is very clearly segmented: Japanese shops take Japanese clients, Korean shops take Korean clients, American shops serve Western clients, and Chinese-language shops — currently just two — focus primarily on Chinese-speaking guests. One of those is the dive shop where I work, Okinawa Diving (沖繩潛水). This segmentation actually keeps things relatively civil, with no cutthroat price wars between shops. *That said, the Blue Cave and Kerama — hugely popular with tourists — have become so busy that many Japanese dive shops now have resident Chinese-speaking instructors or English-speaking Japanese instructors, and you'll find some very competitive pricing in those areas.
2. Name Recognition Is Everything
The first thing almost everyone asks when they say they want to dive with me in Okinawa is: "Can we do the Blue Cave?"
Among ourselves, we half-jokingly call the 青の洞窟 the "queue cave," because during peak season the crowds are so intense that you're lining up from the car park entrance all the way through suiting up, snorkeling or diving in, and taking your photos (the Japanese are very orderly about it). The Blue Cave is a genuinely fun dive site, but no dive site, however good, survives being absolutely stuffed with people. And "one of only two in the world" is a serious overstatement — anywhere there's ocean, a sea cave, and the right light angle can become a blue cave. The most truly jaw-dropping blue cave I've personally visited is on American Saipan.
Search in Chinese, though, and almost every article about Okinawa diving leads with the Blue Cave. The other, more impressive sites simply don't get the exposure, which makes it easy for people to assume that's all Okinawa diving has to offer.
3. Price
Japan is a high-income country with correspondingly high prices, and diving is no exception. Compared to Southeast Asia or Taiwan, diving in Japan can cost 1.5 to 2 times as much.
In Okinawa, a standard certified two-tank shore dive with full equipment rental typically runs between ¥14,000 and ¥16,500, while boat dives start from ¥18,000 (current TWD
exchange rate is approximately 1.27).On top of the cost, diving with Japanese operators means strict adherence to schedules and — due to turnover considerations — fixed dive durations. Regardless of your air consumption, a dive is typically capped at 40 minutes before you're brought back up. I've even heard of dives as short as 20 minutes!
4. A Different Way of Operating
Compared to the five-star, full-service experience common in Taiwan and Southeast Asia, experienced divers may find Okinawa's setup a bit of an adjustment. Taiwanese dive shops typically have a physical premises right at the dive site — you gear up indoors, sit through the briefing, then walk in. Southeast Asian dive shops often handle everything: accommodation, transfers, carrying your tank, even handing you a towel. In Okinawa, unless you're with one of the larger operations, a dedicated briefing space for guests is rare; if there is a physical shop, it usually doubles as a retail display area.
The typical setup is for guests to meet the instructor directly at the dive site. The dive shop arrives with a gear van parked nearby, everyone suits up alongside the van, the briefing happens there and then, and you head in.
5. "Japan"
I think this is ultimately the biggest reason diving in Japan remains so under the radar. Japan's unique culture and rich history have always been the primary draw for foreign visitors, and diving has never been a government-promoted tourism pillar. Many people who come to Okinawa aren't coming specifically for the ocean — they're coming because it's "Japan." And that goes doubly for the main islands.
That said, when you weigh up all these factors together, Okinawa diving still has enormous appeal and genuine untapped potential.
Most visitors spend 4–5 days in Okinawa. Between exploring Ryukyuan historical sites and going all-out on shopping, setting aside one day to experience Japan's deep blue is a genuinely great call. With flight times of just an hour and a half from Taiwan, affordable low-cost carrier tickets, no visa requirements, and Japanese food that suits Taiwanese palates, it's honestly far less effort than, say, the half-day or full-day journeys required to reach well-known dive destinations in the Philippines — and the price difference in diving can easily be offset by the lower airfare.
Although Okinawa and Taiwan are close, some marine species can really only be found — or are far more commonly encountered — in Japanese waters. Okinawa's most iconic diving has to be the Hammerhead Sharks off Yonaguni in winter, when schools of over a hundred individuals are routine, and the near-100% manta ray encounter rate at Ishigaki.
As for the language barrier, Chinese-speaking dive shops are the natural solution. Here are some recommended shops on the Okinawa main island:
Sunabe / Manza / Zanpa Cape
Okinawa Diving (ask for Erica directly)
https://www.facebook.com/okidives/
Kerama
Umi Dive Okinawa
https://www.facebook.com/umidiveokinawa/
青の洞窟 (Blue Cave)
Best Dive Okinawa
https://www.facebook.com/bestdiveokinawa/
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