Torii Station- Day 1

Saturday, August 9, 2008

Not long after we arrived on Island, we heard about Torii Station. This was our first real outing on Okinawa! Torii Station is a base here on the West side of the Island, about 20 minutes North of us. It is a small base, but it has a wonderful beach with lots of white sand. A boardwalk stretches down the beach and chairs and umbrellas are available to rent. One of the coolest features of this beach- a water slide. A FREE water slide!

We left for Torii Station on Saturday afternoon. We found it after a few tries- but in getting lost we found another wonderful little beach. (that will have to be another post!)

We arrived at Torii Station excited to give the water slide a try...only to find that the water slide was closed that day due to a "Scheduled Power Outage". Humm.

Moving on to plan B, we checked the beach and decided to try out the water. The boys had been smart enough to bring their snorkel gear so they were all set. The water was WONDERFUL! So nice and warm! I have never been in the ocean so warm, not even in Hawaii. The air and sea temperature were about the same- close to 88 degrees. Matt and David shared their masks with us so we could see under the water and we decided we were definitely coming back the next day, not only try the water slide, but to snorkel too.

David was enthralled with the sea cucumbers- they were EVERYWHERE! We knew a lot about them since he had just done a marine biology report in the sea cucumber. We got to experience their defense measures first hand when one of them spewed sticky white strands all over my hand. (actually cuierian tubules they expel in a process called evisceration) Yucky stuff- Very thin and very strong. Like spider webs on steroids! I had a heck of a time pulling it off my hands




Matt was lucky (??) enough to see a sea snake. (picture from Google Images). I have since seen one...and they do NOT thrill me! They move very quickly through the water. They are poisonous but not supposed to be aggressive- but can be very curious.


We stayed until the sunset, and what a glorious sunset it was! We didn't come out of the water until it was almost dark.