![]() ![]() (At one time, the local postal service trained its postal clerks to scuba dive, but over time this additional specialized training became difficult to maintain, which is why the dive masters now pitch in.) While Timbaci sometimes straps on scuba gear and mans the post office himself, he often taps one of the dive masters at the nearby Hideaway Island Resort and Marine Sanctuary to help out. Visitors know that the post office is open for business when a flag is flown at the surface. ![]() ![]() (The post office developed a special metal device that marks each postcard without using ink, which would smear on contact.)Ī post shared by All Day I Dream About Travel. “The number goes up when cruise ships come into port.”Īs a postal manager, it’s Timbaci’s job to ensure that the postcards, which are made of waterproof plastic and embossed with a special stamp, are collected on time at 3 p.m. “Every week hundreds of postcards are dropped off at the underwater post office,” Timbaci tells. Devised over drinks by the local postmaster and a resort owner, it opened in 2003 as the world’s first underwater post office to literally make it possible for vacationers to send postcards back home from under the sea. Located about 160 feet off the coast of Vanuatu, an island nation situated about 1,000 miles east of northern Australia, sits the Vanuatu Post’s underwater post office. The mailbox and converted fiberglass water tank are submerged ten feet beneath the surface of Mele Bay, a body of water that feeds into the South Pacific Ocean. It is one of the most popular dive sites in the area, since the blocks attract a lot of life, mainly local reef fish and macro critters, but also seasonal migratory fish.Vira Timbaci’s post office job is similar to that of many postal workers around the world, except for one minor detail: one of the mailboxes he manages is underwater. In Owase (Mie Pref.), a site called Gyosho features an artificial reef made of concrete blocks placed on the sandy bottom. In Hyōgo Prefecture, the Takeno dive site offers the chance to dive a 25m wide and 15m high cave, with a 40m tunnel, that is only 5m wide at a point. ![]() Topographical highlights include the Black Tunnel, an arch between two large rock formations, starting at 32 metres, also in Kushimoto (Advanced Open Water or equivalent certification / deep training required). Still in Wakayama Prefecture, Tanabe is well known for its deep-water colonies of bright yellow anemones, the Halcurias levis Uchida, 2004 Many sites also offer beautiful soft coral colonies, such as Alcyonaceas, notably in Wakayama and Mie Prefectures. Wakayama Prefecture’s Kushimoto is famous for having one of the largest colonies of hard coral tables ( Acroporidae) in Japan. The Kansai area offers the possibility to dive healthy hard and soft coral reefs, with large sponges, anemones, and interesting topography. The Kansai area also includes Hyōgo Prefecture, which faces three different seas: the Seto Inland Sea, the Sea of Japan and the Pacific Ocean. Manta rays and the occasional hammerhead sharks are also sometimes spotted in the summer months on this section of the Pacific coast. The arrival of a stronger flow of the Kuroshio in the spring to summer months leads to a general increase of underwater visibility (especially good in places like Wakayama Prefecture’s Susami) and of sightings of warm water/subtropical species around the entire Kii Peninsula area. Wakayama Prefecture’s Kushimoto area, located at the southern tip of the Kii Peninsula, is under direct influence of the warm Kuroshio current, which brings warmer water to the area, and to the point of affecting the area’s climate, which is largely subtropical, and the warmest in Honshū.īecause of this, one can spot both temperate to cold water marine life and also species more commonly found in warmer, subtropical to tropical waters, including giant sponges and coral reefs formed by over 120 species of coral. The Kansai region (also known as Kinki) is Japan’s cultural heartland, but also offers some solid diving options, especially around the Kii Peninsula, on the Pacific coast. ![]()
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