I had one day in Okinawa to go diving. I had a boat charter booked, but it was cancelled due to the weather forecast, which showed strong winds and rain. It turned out that the weather was actually calm and sunny, so one of the dive shop staff took me out for a few shore dives along the Sunabe seawall. This is a long, concrete wall that protects the town from waves during storms. The top of the wall has a walkway with several shelters and steps leading down to the ocean. We did 3 dives along the breakwall and all 3 were fairly similar. There was a shallow wade/snorkel out for about 50-100 meters before the bottom started to drop off.
The bottom sloped down with some small walls to about 50-60' deep. In the shallows, visibility was less than usual due to recent heavy rain and wind. It was maybe 10' near shore and 40-50' out deeper. The bottom was mostly covered with a great variety of soft corals. There were none of the brightly-coloured type of soft coral. These were a more subdued, pale colour. There were varieties I've never seen before at other places in the Pacific/Indian Oceans. The most memorable creatures for me on these dives were the sea snakes. I've never seen them before anywhere else, but here there were several on each dive. There were also more nudibranchs than I usually see in the tropics. I also saw 3 or 4 different species of clown fish. Water temperatures were about 25 degrees at depth.
