Chaikou

Chaikou faces north, so when summer winds go soft the zone turns into a bright, easy garden: dense thickets of branching and table corals in genuinely good health, hawksbills picking at sponges, porcupinefish loitering under ledges, and clouds of damsels and butterflyfish over every head. The boardwalk crossing the reef flat spares both diver and coral the usual shuffle, and the slope beyond stays gentle to twenty meters. It is the island's family-friendly face, better for unhurried second and third dives than for drama, and in clean Kuroshio water that is no complaint at all.

اللحظة التي جئت من أجلها: Healthy branching-coral thickets, hawksbill encounters, easy boardwalk access

التضاريس: Reef flat and coral-garden slope with scattered heads on sand

نقطة الدخول: A boardwalk over the reef flat on the north coast delivers snorkelers and divers past the surge zone; best in the southerly and calm seasons.

المخاطر: Exposed to the northeast monsoon; surge closes the zone in the windy season.

الحفاظ على البيئة البحرية: Use the boardwalk and marked channels; the reef flat is shallow enough to damage on foot.