Izu Peninsula – Japan
It’s a fair old trek from Tokyo to get to a decent dive site, and navigating the busy rail system in Japanese while carting a load of dive gear adds an interesting dimension to the journey. But divers are not known for their faint heartedness and the lure of a 24C dive with spectacular marine life and excellent vis made us all the more determined to crack the system.
Japan’s Izu Peninsula lies around two hours south of Tokyo and is home to Izu Oceanic Park, a dedicated dive site on the water’s edge complete with hot showers, hammocks, a delicious food van and a big hot pool for you to warm up in after each dive.
We were met at the train station by our fantastic guide Morita-san, a very experienced diver, guide and English-speaker who runs Dive Dream down the road in Ito. If you’re looking for a recommendation, this is the one. He rents out any gear you need, provides a sushi lunch and takes photos during the dives – helpfully writing the names of any fish you might not know on a slate.
After a choppy shore entry hauling ourselves along a rope, we were told to fall in and swim for the buoy. Being used to swimming hell for leather for the buoy in the UK, it was slightly odd being told to slow down! Then we descended into a magical world of lion fish, frog fish, box fish, clown fish, moray eels, pipe fish, and huge parrot fish that were very curious and liked to do the odd photo bomb.
We did two lovely and easy dives of around 35 minutes to 25m – one along the sandy bed and the other around the rocks. The slate was out continuously – that’s a goatfish, this is a three spot damselfish and come and see the coral banded shrimp. Strangely, despite the unending marine life, the locals seemed to be more excited about the underwater Halloween decorations and taking selfies with the skeletons. Halloween is a massive deal in Japan.
As we neared the end of both dives we came face to face with a squad of squid. What a treat to get up so close as they glided past in formation and in a single line. So much to talk about as we de-kitted and went to warm up with a cup of miso soup before lying in the sun and drifting off to the sound of the Pacific crashing onto the rocks below.
Lisa Kean & Ian Fletcher – repping it for TSAC in Japan.
A day at Izu Oceanic Park https://iop-dc.com/ with two dives cost around £85 when booked through Dive Dream – d2@dive-dream.com. It’s recommended to find English speaking dive centres as English is not widely spoken, even in Tokyo. It’s also recommended that you build extra time into travel plans to allow for buying the wrong tickets, missing trains, platform changes and general confusion (us not the Japanese, they are super organised and efficient!)
