17-19 Jun 2011: Miyakejima

It's been busy weeks of work. Can't wait to jump into the ship to escape a bit. Departing for the Miyakejima 三宅島 weekend trip with 30 others!
The main attractions of this trip are walking on an active volcano crate, and swimming with the wild dolphins near 御蔵島 Mikurajima Dolphins Watch Points.

三宅島（みやけじま）は、伊豆諸島の島。東京の南海上175km、伊豆大島の南57kmに位置する。
http://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/三宅島
御蔵島（みくらじま）は、伊豆諸島に属する日本の島。東京都心の南約200km、三宅島の南南東19kmの太平洋上に位置する。
http://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/御蔵島

三宅島観光協会 - Home Miyakejima - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Well, before the lovely itinerary there comes the hard bit, the ferry is 7 hours, so we are sleeping on inclining chair, and arrived the island at 5am....

Weather hasn't been too nice to us either, it's been rainning quite a bit since we arrived, let alone during night time...the tent having rain dripping whole night long and mosquitos were invading. None of the repellant worked!  I was being bitten, final counting is 30 bites spread over my legs, arms, and face....
Anyways, let's move on the fun part now...


The campsite:

The Island/Village:

The volcano crate:
瓢箪山 ひょうたんやま. HYŌTAN-YAMA 三七山

The hike, where I got most of my bites...

We "met" the dolphins at 御蔵島 (Mikurajima). And, the dolphins イルカ, unfortunately I was too busy swimming and shouting underwater, so didn't really shoot any pics for the lovely dolphins. We took a fishing boat and drove 40minutes away from the main island and water is about 10M deep. We stopped the boat and 6 of us were "Dropped" into the ocean with our wet suits, fins, and snorkels masks. I didn't dive deep, mostly snorkeling on surface only, well, first time after-all...Enough fun for me!

So whenever the instructor saw dolphins approaching, they's shout and we all dived. These dolphins are really friendly and swam extremely close to us, like face-to-face encounter really! First time swimming in open water, not to mention about scuba diving, I am really in love with the ocean! So nice so nice so fascinating! Awesome! Am running out of words to describe the experience!
Afterwards, we always ran into onsen and took lovely warm showers. What a wonderful life...and of course, party all night long...
All in all, this is very different from my last trip to Niijima...few FIRST in my lifetime...

• Volcano crate visit / shooting pictures (and in the rain)
• Swimming in an open ocean (Always been swimming leisurely at pools ONLY!)
• Scuba Diving in 10m+ open water (lesson taken on previous day)
• Swimming with wild dolphins

So to say, never stop exploring, open yourself to adventures and challenges!! 

You'd never never know if you never never go!