Zamami Island Trip

For Memorial Day I went out with a bunch of people from my church, the Harbor http://www.okiharbor.com/ on a Memorial Day Weekend trip to Zamami Island. Zamami Island is a hour and a half ferry ride from the port in the capitol city of Naha.

We left early in the morning, but had to wait around awhile to get on the ferry. The church filled up two crates full of camping gear. I only brought my backpackers bag with my snorkel gear attached with none other than boot socks. Haha. I even thought to bring my pillow with my sleeping bag. Amazingly it fit in my bag! It's the same bag I took with me to England, Wales, Ireland and Scotland. It'll be the bag I bring to Australia and New Zealand when the time comes.

My church has services on Fridays and Sundays. I always go on Friday's so I never see the Sunday people. On this trip I met a fellow Marine named Anthony. The way he told it, he never has a chance to take a nice trip. His goal was to spend a lot of time on the beach and in the water. I was looking forward to snorkeling.

We walked to the campgrounds, which was about a 15 minute walk. Anthony came up with the bright idea to just sleep on the beach. Neither of us had tents and both of us didn't feel like bugging anyone for extra space in theirs. What's the worst that could happen? Rain?

Anthony and I set off to a beach on the other side of the island which we heard had a lot of fish and beautiful coral. We talked up a hill that had high fencing to protect against rockslides. It reminded me of Jurassic Park. We got to the beach, put on our gear and started swimming towards the island in the distance. It was a good swim, but I'm still not a big fan of salt water. The water was devoid of life. The coral was black and only in certain places. I don't know where all the fish and beautiful coral was but we sure missed it. When we finished swimming we were thirsty, but we forgot to bring water and yen (Japanese currency). We walked all the way back to the port dried out and nearly dehydrated. We ended up drinking out of a sink. Haha. Gotta learn your lessons while you're young, right?

When we got back to camp they were preparing dinner. After dinner the pastor, Mark, gave a message. Afterwards, they baptised a few from the church in the sea. Talk about a memorable baptism!

That night I crawled into my sleeping bag hoping for the best. I woke up at 4:30am to drizzle. My sleeping bag was waterproof, thankfully. I listened as the drops beat on the bag. Soon the rain began to downpour. I felt as my pillow become like a sponge soaking up the rainwater. I was up at 5am. Thankfully, it was going to be a long, fun day.

Soon the rain stopped and I began drying my things, including putting my pillow in a tree and hanging the sleeping bag on a branch.

For lunch we went into town and found a nice resturant that had delicious rice balls stuffed with pork. After lunch we jumped in a kayak. I have never been kayaking and I was so afraid to tip the kayak and break my camera so I emptied all my pockets. No pictures. Haha. Anthony kayaked one way to a nearby island and I paddled back just in time for dinner. We had great chili and different people from the church stood up and read the Bible verses that were touching their lives at the moment.

After a few too many s'mores I went to bed under an awning this time. Go figure, it didn't rain that night. I woke up early the next morning again. I wondered around camp and then packed my bag up again. Throughout the morning people were packing their things up and taking apart their tents. I helped wherever I could. We loaded everything into a cargo truck and brought it down to the port, unloaded it, and packed it into two cargo crates. I went off into town again to get lunch back at that same resturant. I really liked the food. They had like 2 other resturants I saw, but one was just a fried take out place. The other was never opened when I looked. I also bought myself a Zamami t-shirt, but turns out the Zamami part of the shirt is on the back. It looks like I'm just wearing a plain white t-shirt.

We got on the ferry and I went right to the sleep room. A carperted area to lay down in and take a nap. I was about to fall asleep when this Australian girl (who I heard earlier packing) and her friends all sat down next to me. Curiousity got the better of sleepiness and I started talking to them. The redhead's name was Nigel. He and I stayed up talking about his traveling adventures while the others slept. They came to Okinawa to scuba dive and bicycle around the island. They kinda just randomly met each other along their journies and started traveling together. I really liked the story he told me about how he needed money in Indonesia and wanted to be a English as a second language teacher but he didn't have any college so he found one of those websites that sells college degrees. Sure enough, the school took it. Haha. He also told me about a few run ins he had with trouble around the world. Also, he told me to remember the island of Dominique. Not the Dominican Republic, but a small island in the Carribean that is untouched by tourists. He said it's his favorite place on Earth and this guy has traveled. There was also a Dutchman and another Canadian who was fluent in Mandarin and Cantonese. Meeting travelers just makes me want to forget all about a career and just backpack the world in search of new adventures.

The trip was amazing and the most fun I've had on Okinawa so far. I hope to go on more camping trips like this in the future. I just really need to remember SUNSCREEN... okay well I did remember it on my face, arms and legs... I need sunscreen on my back for snorkeling. Also, I'll never forget water ever again.