Mikurajima Dolphins

Last weekend I blogged about my trip to Mikurajima, but with my cellphone I wasn't able to post any decent pictures. Luckily Emi had her underwater camera, and now that she's sent me her photos I can do a proper post about the trip.

The picture above is of Mikurajima, taken from the approaching ferry after a 7 hour/200 kilometre overnight journey. Notice how steep the coast is-- the entire island is like that, unlike the flat coastline and gentle slopes of the neighboring volcanic island of Miyakejima (whose residents have only recently started returning after an eruption 6 years ago). The way Mikurajima juts out of the ocean is impressive and the cliffs, a mixture of layered rocks and lush vegetation lined here and there with thin cascading waterfalls, are certainly beautiful. But the steep sides of the island mean there are no beaches, and this little island (about 20 square kilometres) has just one small village with a handful of inns, a few tiny grocery stores and one restaurant. So what the hell is there to do on this island?

Pretty much just one thing:

That's right-- go swimming with dolphins. The waters around the island are home to approximately 200 dolphins (compare that to the island's human population of about 300). From April to October dolphin tours are offered from Mikurajima and the nearby Miyakejima, allowing tourists to watch the dolphins from small boats or don snorkeling gear and slip into the water for a better look. The dolphins will sometimes play with the swimmers, but mostly just ignore them and go about their business.

And that's what they did with us. Apparently by mid-summer the novelty of seeing humans up close has worn off and the dolphins aren't as inclined to play. But simply watching them do their thing is plenty cool enough. They are amazing creatures and seeing them up close in the wild is completely different from seeing them in an aquarium. I've always had a certain image of dolphin lovers as flakey New-age hippy types and I have to admit that image has rubbed off onto the dolphins themselves, and whenever I thought of dolphins I'd imagine them as part of a tacky Lasser painting. So until Emi convinced me to come on this tour I really had no interest in the animals at all, and I agreed to come on the trip more to hang out with her than to see the dolphins.

How wrong I was! Dolphins are truly are amazing creatures. Just being near them was an incredibly moving and magical experience. I really did get a sense that they are intelligent, complex and playful animals, not so very different from humans. And I can't wait to go back and swim with them again.

We did two tours, one on Saturday afternoon and the other Sunday morning. On each tour we motored around the island on a small boat with two crew members and 7 touritst, stopping whenever dolphins were spotted, about 6 stops in total. Occasionally the dolphins were already gone by the time we got into the water, but usually we managed to see them. And we also saw plenty of other neat stuff like tropical fish and two sea turtles, which were surprisingly fast and graceful.

The water was warm so wetsuits were not necessary (although I noticed that every single member of the other tours--there were several out there--were wearing them. The tour companies must do very good business with wetsuit rentals). It is not necessary to be a great swimmer- one lady couldn't swim so used a kickboard to float, only putting her masked face in the water when her daughter alerted her to the presence of dolphins nearby. Her daughter, on the other hand, was an excellent free diver (suba diving is not allowed) and could could follow the dolphins several metres below the surface, staying down without air for a surprising amount of time. A couple of non-swimmers just stayed on the boat and enjoyed seeing the dolphins surface--they were treated to several jumps and a few flips, things that those of us underwater missed out on.

We had to leave a few hours after Sunday's tour and I was very sad to go. The picture above is of the Camellia Maru, the ferry that took us back to Tokyo, and below is the Rainbow Bridge welcoming us back to the city that evening.

For more pictures, see my Flickr Mikurajima album. More posts about Mikurajima: 2008 visit, 2009 visit.

Information:

Access to Mikurajima is by ferry, and helicopter (it is also possible to fly to nearby Miyakejima and take a dolphin tour from there). Tokai Kisen has ferry service 6 days a week; it takes about 7 1/2 hours and costs from 9250 Yen for second-class tickets (discounts are available for students, seniors, large groups, and early reservations). We stayed at Onjuku Nishigawa, which costs 8000 Yen per night with dinner and breakfast. For the dolphin tours we went with Sirius Nature Tours, which offers 2-hour tours (it feels much longer) for 7000 Yen. Snorkeling equipment and wetsuits are available for rental, or you are free to use your own equipment.

Mikurajima Information (Japanese)

Tokai Kisen (Japanese)

Onjuku Nishigawa (Japanese)
04994-8-2106
23 Mikurajima Mura, Tokyo

Sirius Nature Tours (Japanese)
04994-8-2256
Mubanchi, Mikurajima Mura, Tokyo

Comments

[Kat]

beautiful photos!

[carlyn]

Amy;
.....Wonderful!!!!! Thank you!!!!

[Amy]

Thank you!

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