From: martin@ichigo.os.nasu.toshiba.co.jp ((SKAI))
Newsgroups: rec.scuba
Subject: Diving in JAPAN
Date: 10 Sep 92 02:16:14 GMT


 Quite a while ago, there was the following posting from Mike Meyer:

>Date : 24 AUG 1992
>Message ID : <2432.84.uupcb@cutting.hou.tx.us>
>
>I'm planning on taking a business trip to Japan in the Spring, and I in
>the process of getting my PADI Open Water certification.  Any idea where
>I should start looking to find a good location and somebody to dive
>with?


   I've been living in Japan for nearly 2 years (Since December 1990)
and I dove a couple of times here.  There are plenty of nice spots for
scuba diving in Japan, the only problem is that it's expensive!

  There is a certain "common sense" in this country which says that it
is not proper to offer just what people need for little money; the rule
here is "give them a whole lot more useless bells and whistles and 
charge them a mint" !  Nobody will accept to rent you a tank unless 
you sign up for the boat tour with lunch and everything.  A lot of 
places will charge you about $90 per dive (one dive = one tank).  And
a lot of these boat tours apply the "Japanese Tourist" approach: a huge
group of people all following one leader.  

 Anecdote: 
  When I arrived in Japan, I brought my tank along with me: big mistake!
First it is illegal to import a tank in Japan, but I managed to convince 
the transporter not to send my tank back to Canada and finally got it
delivered OK.  THEN, I went to have it inspected and certified but I was
told that my tank could not be used in Japan anyway because it was red!!
In Japan it's gray only, any other color is illegal!  But there is more,
even if I paint my tank gray or tear off the red plastic it will still 
cost me about $100 a year to have it visually inspected!!!  I therefore 
decided that I would always RENT a tank which is, as mentionned above, 
not as easy as it seems.

  Ok, the steam came out! Now the good spots:

*OKINAWA: (about 3 hours by plane from Tokyo)
  I don't know how far away from Tokyo you can afford to go, but okinawa
 definitely is a good spot for diving.  There are many islands in 
 Okinawa, I don't think you'd enjoy the main island so much (NAHA city).
 I went to ISHIGAKI-JIMA and IRIOMOTE-JIMA (jima or shima means Island) 
 last march: gorgeous!  Visibility is A-MA-ZING!  Lots of fish, blue and
 purple corals etc...  There is an airport on Ishigaki and from there it
 is possible to go to a lot of smaller islands around.  People are very
 friendly on these islands...

*IZU PENINSULA:
  This is very close to Tokyo (no need to fly, you can go by train).  It
  is not as clean and beautiful as Okinawa but still very famous for 
  diving.  I went there last summer.  Get ready to pay a lot of money
  for your dives because there are almost no spots reachable by beach.
  You have to go for the expensive boat...  I managed to rent a tank and
  get a guy to give me a boat ride to a nice spot for less than $20 all
  together.  But unless you can speak Japanese, don't expect such a 
  deal!

*THAILAND:
   If I were you, I would definitely try to evaluate how much more 
   expensive it would turn out to be to make your plane ticket go through
   Thailand.  Because everything is so expensive in Japan, a lot of 
   people (Japanese) actually prefer to fly to Thailand and dive there
   where everything (Hotels, diving gear rentals, food) is much cheaper.
   Especially, if you buy your ticket from the States, you may have a 
   good deal for Thailand.

  If you decide on where about you'd like to go, I can give you some 
  more detailed info like addresses and phone numbers and all that.



--------------------------------------------------------------------------
   Martin DuDemaine         |  Toshiba Medical Systems
			    |  Nasu, Japan
			    |  martin@os.nasu.toshiba.co.jp
--------------------------------------------------------------------------





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