Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
to Amami City, arriving at 8:30
PM
. Here, there's about a 45-minute stop for restocking. At
9:20
PM
the ship departs Nazé Port and sails 240 miles (384 kilometers) through the night,
with no further stops, arriving at Kagoshima City at 8:30
AM
the next morning.
Sailing the route from north to south, each day a ship leaves Kagoshima Port at 6:00
PM
,
arriving non-stop on Amami at 5:00
AM
the next morning. At 5:50
AM
, the ship departs Nazé
for Tokuno and arrives at 9:10
AM
. Half an hour later, at 9:40
AM
, it departs for Okinoerabu,
arriving at 11:30
AM
. The ship stops there for 30 minutes, then departs at 12:00 noon. An hour
and forty minutes later, it arrives at Yoron-tō. Some 20-30 minutes later, at around 2:00
PM
,
the ship sails approximately two and a half hours south to Okinawa's Motobu Port, arriving
near 4:30
PM
. Loading and reloading there for half an hour, the ship departs about 5:00
PM
for
its last leg to Naha Port, arriving two hours later, at 7:00
PM
. The ship docks for the night, then
departs at 7:00
AM
the next morning, starting the cycle all over again.
There are over 250 miles (400 kilometers) of picture postcard vistas along the convoluted coastline of
Amami-Ōshima.
Let's look at the Amami Archipelago in detail, for it is very beautiful. Although the islands
are not tropical for the most part, they receive more than adequate rainfall and thus are lush
and green. Their climates vary from mild temperate to subtropical. Here's a run-down of the
islands traveling from north to south.
1
AMAMI-ŌSHIMA
奄美大島
Commonly called Ōshima (“Big Island”), this is the northernmost island in the Amami
group. It has an area of 275 square miles (713 square kilometers) and is the largest island in
the Amami Archipelago and second largest (after Okinawa) in all the Ryukyus. At its greatest
length, it is approximately 38 miles (60 kilometers) long. Its width varies from almost 19
miles (30 kilometers) to as little as 10 (16 kilometers), and at one place in the north it nar-
rows to a less than 1-mile (1-kilometer)-wide isthmus. A triangular-shaped island, Ōshima's
