December 13, 2025
Day 102 — Tokashiki Island to Naha
Marilee here.
We woke up in the tent to a glorious sunny morning and the beach was calling to us already. Specifically, it was saying, “come and drink coffee, eat bananas and peanut butter sandwiches, while sitting in the sunshine watching the waves”. To which we replied, OK beach, we’re coming!
I got about midway through a cup of coffee before I had to run back and get my bathing suit and towel, and plunge in.
Swimming, sitting on the sand, sipping coffee — all these are excellent ways to spend a morning, but eventually we decided to leave the beach and do some more exploring. First, we headed up to an observation platform on a nearby clifftop, to get a bird’s eye view of our surroundings. It was pretty spectacular.
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We could see that the coastline stretching northwards seemed to be a series of sandy coves, and as it was low tide it looked like it was possible to walk from one to the next, with a little rock-hopping in between. So we descended from our perch to see how far we could get along the beaches before the tide started coming back in.
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We had a fun amble along the beaches, collecting treasures (shiny rocks and pretty shells, most of them home to hermit crabs), nosing into caves along the way, and generally puttering around as one does with lots of time and sunshine and nothing particularly urgent to do.
But in fact, we did have a deadline to meet today. Our weather apps were warning us that starting in the late afternoon the wind was going to pick up, building to gale force gusts and rain overnight and all the next day. We had decided that it was too risky to stay another night on the island, in case ferries were cancelled the following day (our experience of the last-minute ferry cancellation in Kagoshima had made us extra-cautious). We didn’t want to find ourselves wind-bound on an island when we needed to be in Naha boxing up our bikes and getting on a plane. So we had to get all the way back to the ferry terminal (all 6km!) in time for a 3:30 ferry.
We drifted back to the campground in late morning to start packing up, and discovered Justin, our young fellow camper and fellow Canadian, just newly woken up and having breakfast. Justin was at the start of an ambitious multi-year round the world trip. He’d told us the day before that he intended to find an isolated beach and wild camp for a few days, and after he finished breakfast he started packing up for this adventure. Since we were heading back to town earlier than expected, we gave him some of our extra food (I was a little worried about his provisioning for this expedition, he didn’t seem to be an experienced camper). We all had a good chat while slowly packing up — in fact Justin was packing up so slowly that I began to wonder if he had a case of the nerves about his plans.
Eventually, Tom and I loaded all our gear onto the bikes and said our goodbyes to Justin, who was still fiddling with his backpack. We headed into the little beach town and decided we had time to get some lunch before returning to the ferry terminal. We’d no sooner ordered than who should turn up at the same restaurant — our buddy Justin. So of course we made room for him at our table and we all ate lunch together and chatted some more, while Tom and I refrained from pointing out that the sun would be going down in 4 hours and he hadn’t even started hiking off to find a remote, isolated beach. We finished lunch and said goodbye again to Justin, this time for real, and we’ll just never know whether he eventually found a spot to wild camp, and if he survived the experience. I hope so! Good luck to you Justin, wherever you are — I hope your travels go well.
The bike back to the ferry was even more scenic than the ride the previous day had been. We had time to kill in the ferry terminal before the boat to Naha left, and the ferry ride back to the city was smooth sailing. Where were the predicted high winds? It seems a little churlish to wish for bad weather, but we really hoped that forecasted wind and rain for the days ahead came true, or we’d feel like fools for having left such an idyllic spot before we had to.
Today's ride: 6 km (4 miles)
Total: 4,849 km (3,011 miles)
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