Okinawa is a little sub tropical island in the middle of the ocean. The East side of the island has the East China Sea and the West side has the Pacific Ocean. There are various sea conditions that determine what water activities you can do. The TV always has the sea conditions posted on the lower left side of the screen. When nothing is posted this usually means the sea is calm and the ocean is available for any kind of water activities. If the water is questionable than there will be various letters on the TV. The first letter will be an E or a W to let you know what side of the island the condition is in reference to. The following letter will be a C, W, or Red. C is for Caution, W is for Warning, and RED means you can NOT enter the water. So, if it just says WC, than usually the East side of the island is fine for diving but you need to take precautions if you were to dive on the West side. I haven’t dove the West side yet. That is the Pacific side and sharks swim those waters. It is just a completely different ocean to dive on the West side. I dive the East side, but will do a West dive before we leave. Ed and I are not able to dive when the sea condition is RED. It is against our SOFA Status. When the ocean conditions are bad, we can’t dive, but the surfers will be out! Today was one of those days. We had to cancel our boat dive but the surfers will able to enjoy our waters instead. We went down to the Sea Wall to see if the surfers were out having fun. They were and there were lots of them in the water and along the Sea Wall. It was fun watching them surf the waves. They were able to catch some good ones. It is primarily Okinawan’s in the water when the waves are like this. However, you will see the die-hard surfer dude, American, out there risking getting caught to catch a nice wave. We saw a few. Lucky for them no one was out checking the water for Americans, so they got to catch some great waves! This is one of my favorite places to go! I love to watch the ocean. Today the sea condition was EW RED, which means we are NOT allowed to go into the water on either side. The waves were pretty rough and it was fun watching the Okinawan's surf. I love to boogie board but am a terrible surfer! I can get up and wobble and actually go for a tiny bit before i biff it! I've just banged my head enough times on my board that i don't even try to surf anymore! Ed and i have dove in waters worse than what these wete before. It was fine when we had gone in but by the time we surfaced the waves were crashing on the cliffs at Meida. Ed said i looked like a rag doll as i kept getting banged into the cliffs. He had got his fins off and made it to the stairs before the next set of waves came in, me, not so lucky. Ha! He was quite entertained watching me. There was nothing i could do except wait for the set to finish. The hard part is not getting sucked out! When you slam the walls and as you get pulled back out you just grab the coral and hang on until the next wave crashes you back into the walls. Good times. My tank is yellow and it is funny to see the yellow lines i leave on the coral after i get out of the water. I love this picture of Ed and I, the one with me standing in front of him. He hates doing pictures, but he humored me today and pretended to be happy. Ha!
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