Tripping in Miyako, Japan’s tiny, charming and slightly bonkers subtropical archipelago
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As the flimsy boat slams down hard on the choppy waves, rain gushes in from all sides and I see, in the distance, a man walking on water. Is this the end?
Well, of course not. The man is walking on an enormous coral reef called Yabiji, in Japan’s Okinawa prefecture. Also known as “Illusion” or “Phantasmal” island, the reef appears for only a few hours each spring, at the lowest tides of the year. It’s visible first as a brown shadow – when anyone standing on it looks as if they’re walking on water – and then seems to rear up from the sea to form an astonishingly large island, out of the blue, out of the wet. By coincidence I have arrived just in time to witness its annual appearance.
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I feel sorry for the sea creatures living here on Yabiji, half an hour’s boat trip from Miyako-jima, part of an island group that lies further south than Taipei. For the rest of the year, they live safely among the crevices and overhangs of the coral, with only natural predators such as sharks and tuna to worry about.
Then, suddenly, they are exposed to the air and to rapacious human scavengers, who flood onto the reef to hunt as the tide recedes, exposing shellfish and sea slugs, and trapping fish and other creatures. For many it’s too late. Boats loaded with revellers have already anchored in what are now shallow bays, and the first visitors are rowed ashore, dressed to kill in wetsuits, hats and gloves and carrying big baskets. The stranded creatures are sitting ducks.
When my friend, Etsuko Kikuchi, invited me on a boat trip the morning after I arrived in the Miyako Islands, I envisaged a Hong Kong-style junk jaunt, lazing on the deck in the sun, sipping wine and nibbling dumplings provided by second-rate caterers while Bohemian Rhapsody blared from the speakers. She neglected to mention the purpose of the trip wasn’t enjoyment as much as gathering seafood, that the boat was tiny with little or no protection against the elements and that the weather in this neck of the watery woods changes about 16 times a day, mostly between heavy and extremely heavy rain.