Cape Maeda

This guide to Cape Maeda on Okinawa's west coast starts at the cliff edge, where the shallow reef abruptly drops into black water fishermen once believed only a sea god could have carved. It follows the ritual of praying here before a voyage, and the low sea cave nearby where sunlight bends underwater and turns the water an unnatural blue, a spot Okinawans call the blue cave. You'll hear the local belief about swimming through it as a couple, and what the same darkness once sheltered during the war. Best experienced by swimming into the cave itself, not just looking down from the cliff.