Sunabe Seawall
Depth is the range from the top of the site to its usual maximum; "recommended cert" is the mainstream-agency level operators usually ask for, not a legal rule. Currents and visibility change daily — treat everything here as planning ranges.
Sunabe is Okinawa's neighborhood dive, a kilometers-long seawall where tanks roll out of parked cars and the ocean starts at the bottom of a staircase. The reef flat beyond is an unglamorous, generous hunting ground: nudibranchs in catalog variety, frogfish on the rubble mounds, anemone clusters with defensive clownfish, octopus in the potholes, and juvenile oddities after every storm. Night dives are effortless and productive. Coral cover thins and thickens along the wall's length, but the point of Sunabe is rhythm rather than spectacle, the same easy entry producing something new every single time.
The moment you come for: Car-to-water shore diving, deep nudibranch catalog, easy productive night dives
Topography: Gentle reef flat and coral heads seaward of a concrete promenade
Entry: Steps punctuate the long Chatan seawall; locals name entries by number and pick them to match the day's wind.
Know before you splash
Hazards: Swell over the wall in wind, boat channel traffic at some entries, and stonefish-adjacent rubble: watch your hands.
Who you'll meet
Clownfish & Anemonefish
Frogfish
Lionfish
Nudibranchs
For photographers
Wide angle: ★★☆☆☆ · Macro: ★★★★★ — editors' 1–5 rating of what this site gives each style of shooting