Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
Sonai has the gas station, a lovely beach and the
minshuku
, the second Sonai, to the south on
Route 215, has the junior high school, the post office and the fishing port. It faces two bays,
both with beaches. Each village may have somewhere around 100 residents.
From the fishing port just below Sonai's second village, it's another 1.5 miles (2.5 kilo-
meters), all the while hugging the western shoreline on Route 215 until a large tunnel. The
tunnel is 2,300 feet (700 meters) long and empties into the last village reachable by road on
Iriomotejima, Shirahama (
白浜
). We can go no further, at least by car. If you had clocked the
entire route on the Kaichū dōro, starting at the campground at Haemida Beach, all the way
around the island to here, on the water at Shirahama Port, you would have measured 35 miles
(56 kilometers) on your car's odometer.
That's really not very much, but isn't it strange that such a little distance can take a couple
of days of engaging sightseeing? That's the way it is on Iriomote, and that's the way it is on so
many of the Ryukyus. Like a gemstone with many facets, there's so much in a small space that
so many overlook.
As for Shirahama, it's a nice enough little place but “little” is the operative word for there
are only about 30-40 residences with perhaps 100 persons. There's a fairly good-sized port
and dock, a fairly large modern ferry terminal and a school, up to junior high grade. There is
another Meridian Monument, for the 123456789 Longitude Line runs through here as well.
There is no gas station or any other services of any kind. It would seem that Shirahama is
really is the end of the road, literally and figuratively, but in fact there is a bit more.
You will see from the waterfront at Shirahama that there are two rather large islets imme-
diately offshore. Let's first have a look at them.
UCHIBANAREJIMA
(
内離島
; Uchi-banaréjima). The most immediate islet to Shirahima is
Uchibanare. It's about 2,300 feet (70 meters) southwest, in front of the Shirahama dock. Al-
though the islet is uninhabited and mostly covered in jungle, there are several small pastures
for the grazing of animals on the northeast side. Compared to some of the really small is-
lands we've seen, Uchibanare is actually pretty large. It's more or less oval-shaped, with the
exception of one northern protrusion, and measures 1.75 miles (3 kilometers) long from end
to end. Its width varies from 2,130 (650 meters) to just over three-quarters of a mile (1 kilo-
meter) at its widest. Its area has been determined to be three-quarters of a square mile (2.10
square kilometers). That's as large as a number of inhabited islands in the Ryukyus. Inter-
estingly, at one time, before World War II, Uchibanare was heavily mined for coal. It had a
number of rich seams. These were exhausted and there are none worked today.
