So, well rested after the party, we spend Monday on sailing adventures around the islands. The weather is warm and sunny, the wind is kind, the sea is graceful, the scenery is fairytale.

Ben likes to build sand castles. Accordingly, we anchor off a totally deserted beach on one of the uninhabited islands.

The beach on the bottom right corner.

These beaches are more less unvisited.Big conch shells lie around, lots of other exotic shells lie around including US WWII artillery shells.

Exotic shells

Ben goes snorkeling, no wet suit, it is November, the water is still pleasantly warm and crystal clear.

Hooray! We are standing on unexploded munitions.

We then set off on an epic sail. You can try and follow the route on the map below.

Our route around the Keramas.

We try to beat up the sound between our island and Tokashiki but get bored with all the bashing against pretty determined waves coming in the other direction.

We swing around and head for the port of Aka and sweep majestically under the bridge that links Aka to the island like next to it. Beautiful scenery, wind behind as we thunder west. Next we try to beat up the west coast of Aka with the intention of rounding the top of the island and zipping back into Zakimi. We try very hard but the Scaffie is not at her best against the wind in high seas. Eventually we give up and decide to run back down the coast mount the engine and motor home.

The engine does not start. Oh, Tophatsu what have I done to upset you so ? We have no option but to beat back to Zakimi. No great mischief you may think but the problem is that it is now night and we can see nothing  and frankly do not know where we are going.

We beat up the Aka channel and finally pass under the Aka bridge. We then head in the general direction of Zakimi. The sea is  full of islands and rocks  and coral. Ben stays up front and shouts, “Go about!” each time we are seconds away from a beach, a rock and that sort of thing. It was very hairy and in fact Ben and I still disagree on the route we took to get back to Zakimi, illustrating that we had no idea where we were. The night was exceptionally dark and even when we saw the lights of Zakimi, I was not convinced that it actually was the harbor rather than a smaller settlement. Luckily Ben was adamant and we finally tied up after 4 hours of beating through hazard in the pitch dark.

We went back to our shed and slept in preparation for the 6:00 start of the return trip to Okinawa.

Eheu!