Yonaguni or Dunan in the local language, is a tiny island (28 sq. km.) located 125 km from Taiwan and 127 km from Ishigaki . It is found at the far end of the Ryukyu chain of islands on the East China Sea and has a population of less than 2000.

Yonaguni's unique attraction for archaeologists and divers like myself are the mysterious underwater ruins (kaitei iseki) which lie off the southern coast of the island. They are believed to be 8000 years old and are thought to be the lost Continent of Mu. Seeing the ruins, however, took great persistence, effort and skill due to strong wind, surges, currents and just about everything not going in our favour! We actually only managed to get one very short dive on the monument in the late afternoon on our last day there.

Yonaguni Monument was actually discovered in 1985 by Kihachiro Aratake who we actually had the pleasure of diving with. He owns the largest dive shop on Yonaguni called Sawes, pronounced South-West. He was searching for hammerhead sharks on the south-east side of Yonaguni called Arakawa Point when he came across angular steps, huge vertical walls and what looked like man-made carvings. The megalith is over 300 feet (100 meters) long and can been seen in the last set of photographs below.

We started our dive on the monument through a four-foot high tunnel on the south-west, which is part of a limestone stone fence barrier to the ruin. According to our guide limestone was not indigenous to Yonaguni, so how did it get there? After swimming through the narrow tunnel we arrived at two huge stone pillars standing vertical with the tops of the structure in only 10 feet of surging waters. These are thought to be some kind of gateway and can be seen below.

We then headed up and along the long flat wall of the megalith and around a sharp corner to a flat and step like structure. This was a challenge to photograph as divers came surging around the corner out of control bumping into walls and trying to hang on to something along the smooth platforms. The surge was so strong and bubbles were everywhere from other divers I only got off a few pictures before giving up and heading up to the next platform. After passing some small steps we took a look into a circular hole about halfway down the topside of the monument. I took a few pictures here and also inside of the hole. At this point we were at about 5 feet! We then passed various ruts and a deep well-like structure which you can see below. We then finned to the far end of the monument to see one of the two turtle carvings. I got a number of pictures here with Andres showing the sheer size of this structure. Once everyone had gathered here we finned hard across the open waters for a safety stop and then staggered back onto the boat through large waves! My ears felt like there would explode after going up and down between 30 – 10 feet. I would like to go back again for a closer inspection in the future….who knows…..maybe I can sneak in another trip before we leave Okinawa in June!

The island of Yonaguni is very peaceful and scattered with old Okinawan style houses. The local people were super friendly and enjoyed sharing their infamous "flower sake", hanazake called Dunan! We stayed at the old fashioned guest house called ADAN and spent an enjoyable evening drinking and chatting with our host, learning some Yonaguni dialect! We met some wonderful people during our trip and we will remember this short vacation for many years to come!