Posted by McShagger on July 02, 2001 at 18:08:22:
In Reply to: I think its time for a laugh . . . posted by Kevin on July 02, 2001 at 16:52:50:
Me and my budy decided to try the Cape Zanpa point in Okinawa. We figured it would be a pretty easy beach dive. (None of them are) It was a beautiful day in Okinawa and Cape Zanpa really took our breaths away. Once we parked the car though, we knew it was going to be tough. It was hot, really hot. I hadnt even taken the gear out of my car and I was dripping sweat. The soda/snack stand nearby invited me to buy a Calpis Water.
We both decided to wear our gear down. You all know this story. The treck down proved to be a hike to the pitts of hell. It was hot, real hot. I was wearing my 1/2mm suit that I was happy to wear only because of the SPF. Other than that, I was sweating up the wet suit. There was supposed to be a path that lead you to the entry point, but it was not so obvious. The rocks all over the area were sharper than the teeth of JAWS. I thought I was going to have to buy myself new booties after this. I didnt have my glosves on, so every time I started to fall, I used my hands to break it. My hands werent bleeding but they were raw.
Zanpa is not a point to dive at low tide. We didnt know that, so we had to climb down a sharp rock wall.
We finally get close and immediately lie down in the water to cool our bodies down. However, there were large waves coming in the small mouth of the enclosed entry point. If it hadnt been such a tremendous task to make it to that point, we probably would have turned around and said forget about it. But it was hot, real hot and the knee high water in the enclosed entry point was too warm to cool us off, so we decided to go for it. I was so happy that my 1/2mm suit was a full suit, becasue those waves were banging me into the rocks and everything. After one bang too many< i decided to go for it and lunge into the next wave. I couldnt see how deep it was because of all the motion from the waves. This made it extremely scarey, but my calcualtions were right and it got alot deeper and a lot easier and I was in cool water. I called for my buddy to join me and to fear nothing except the return.