Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
The rugged coast of the Kita Daitō ferry landing dock is visible at right rear.
Kita Daitōjima Airport.
Kita Daitō has a population of a little more than 600. Food and most other cargo are
brought in by ship. Islanders order their supplies, nowadays primarily online, and these are
delivered by the ferry service. Some goods, including daily mail, arrive by the RAC com-
muter flights. Because of the extra transportation, everything is a little more expensive than
in Naha. Unless you have family or friends on Kita, most visitors will stay in the island's one
hotel, the Hamayū-so (
ハマユウ荘
; Hamayū-so Ufu Agari Shima; tel. 09802-3-4880). It's a
fairly large, modern, concrete structure with about 25 rooms. All have private baths, air-con-
ditioning and high-speed internet cable access. About half the accommodations are set up
Western style, the other half feature tatami mats and traditional Japanese futon mattresses.
The hotel has a large dining room and serves good food at set hours every day. Breakfast and
dinner are included in the room rates and, very simply, there is no other place to go. The hotel
staff can also rent you a bike, scooter or car. The rental prices for cars and scooters are high.
There's not all that much to see on Kita but the island is ringed by service roads and you
can hike or drive from one end to the other and all around. The seashore is nearly always dra-
matic, though almost always inaccessible. If you should be traveling with children, near the
island's northwest corner, a little more than half a mile (1 kilometer) from the hotel, there is
a small children's park and playground. Nearby this park there are the ruins of a phosphor-
us ore processing plant (
燐鉱石 貯蔵庫跡
; Rinkō seki chozō koato) and a great mechanical
winch for hauling ships out of the sea. Phosphate used to be mined on Kita Daitō before the
World War II. The winch cables were used to pull ships up a great steep ramp carved into the
coral rock, another sign of the efforts made because of the lack of a harbor. The winch mech-
anism was abandoned years ago and is now just rusting away. Evidently, it's more practical to
use cranes to move cargo.
