We left the small port of Zamami this morning about 9:30, motoring out of the harbour in the crystal clear, turquoise and aquamarine-coloured waters. It was a nice little town with narrow streets and the usual small houses but a bit more colourful than Ikema, our last stop. We had used our time to do a bit of riding around on our bikes, visited a lovely beach with good snorkelling and ate out at one of the local restaurants. We felt like we were on holiday and could easily have stayed much longer as there seemed to be so many nearby islands and beaches to explore but we have a bit of a timetable which is already getting tight!
Today we had good sailing once again - nothing too strong as far as wind but a good breeze and some current to carry us the 25 NM to Ginowan Marina on Okinawa Island, 26 deg. 17.370 N, 127 deg. 41.573 E. Makes all those sails to windward seem so far in the past and sailing a pleasure once more.
We are now in the marina where our first chore will be to give Tweed a good wash down - she is covered in dust, sand and grit blown onto her from the wharf at Zamami. Then we can start on the inside which has a layer of gritty dust over everything as well! From our approach to Okinawa we could see that we were arriving in a place with a high population density - the built environment seeming to stretch from one end of the island to the other and a busy airport on the southern end. Countless aircraft could be seen arriving and departing as we came nearer, both civil and military aircraft using the same airport with not much separation between a lot of them! Jon was having a great time plane spotting.
