The Kerama Islands, island by island

The Kerama Islands in Okinawa sit in the East China Sea west of the main island, and the whole group lies close enough to Naha to work as a day trip.⁹ Aka Island, for one, lies approximately 40 kilometers west of Naha, and the crossing from Tomari Port takes around 50 minutes by high-speed boat.¹⁰ That short hop makes a single day on the water possible, and it means you can eat breakfast in a Naha hotel and be floating over a reef before lunch.

Most of the group is empty. Japan's tourism board says most of the islands are uninhabited, with Tokashiki, Zamami and Aka the most popular destinations.¹¹ The Japan Tourism Agency's database describes the national park as over 30 islands of different sizes plus their surrounding waters.¹² Of all those islands, only four carry villages: Tokashiki, Zamami, Aka and Geruma.¹ Everything else is a rock, a sandbar or a green hump that boats sail past.

The park was designated in March 2014, and the sea makes up the majority of its area.¹³ The Ministry of the Environment gives the land area as 3,520 ha and a designation date of March 5, 2014.² Next to the water around them the dry parts are small, and that suits a snorkeling day, because the part of the park worth the trip is the part you swim over. The sections below walk through the four villages in turn.

Zamami is about 50 minutes by express ferry from Naha, covers 6.7 square kilometers and has around 500 people, according to Visit Okinawa Japan.⁵ The village tourism association puts the population at around 600, so treat either figure as a round one.²⁷ Japan's tourism board calls it the second largest of the Keramas and small enough to walk from the port to its two finest beaches in 20 minutes.⁶

Those beaches carry the island's name abroad. Furuzamami Beach extends for more than 800 meters, and the tourism association says it received two stars in the Michelin Guide.^18,28 Ama Beach, where sea turtles can often be seen, sits in the Ama area, a 15-minute walk from the main settlement.^28,29 A beach you can reach on foot from the pier suits travelers who arrive without a car, and it keeps the day simple.

Getting around the hills is easiest on wheels. Visit Okinawa Japan says renting a car or an electric bike is the best way to get around Zamami, and that the local bus reaches Ama and Furuzamami beaches.³⁰ There are no flights to the island, so every visitor arrives by boat from Tomari Port, whether for a few hours or a week.³¹ The Zamami page of this site goes deeper into the beaches, the turtles and the village.

Between the villages lie islets with no one on them. Amuro, Gahi and Agenashiku are three uninhabited islands that can be reached from Zamami Port.⁵⁵ Visit Okinawa Japan says dive shops on the inhabited islands run tours out to the waters around the many uninhabited islands in the park.⁵⁶ They are part of the same national park as the inhabited islands. Seen from the deck they are green stones scattered across blue water, and they give the reef a frame.

Underneath is the reason people come to Okinawa's Kerama Islands. Visit Okinawa Japan says more than 200 of the 400 species of coral in Japan grow on the reefs of the Kerama Islands, and that hawksbill, green and loggerhead turtles nest around the islands.²⁶ Japan's tourism board says the blue of the water has its own name, Kerama blue, and National Parks of Japan describes it as the dazzling turquoise sea that surrounds the islands.^57,58

Our full-day listing sails among exactly this scenery. It names Zamami Island, Tokashiki Island and Maejima Island in the national park as the places to see, and adds that the islands visited vary with weather and sea conditions. It also says the tour does not include island hopping, so the day is spent on the water and not on land, and that is worth knowing before you picture a beach lunch.