Kabira Bay

Kabira Bay, on the north-western coast of Ishigaki Island in Japan's far south, is a small sheltered bay of white sand and turquoise water whose colours shift constantly with the light and with the rise and fall of the tide. Densely wooded shores and a scatter of small islets frame it, and beneath the surface many species of reef-building coral grow in dense communities. It is regarded as the signature landscape of Ishigaki.

Since 1997 the bay, together with Mount Omoto, the island's highest peak at about 525 metres, has been protected as a national Place of Scenic Beauty. When Iriomote National Park was enlarged in 2007 to become Iriomote-Ishigaki National Park, the bay was placed in its Class I special zone. The corals are usually viewed from glass-bottomed boats that cross the bay, and black pearls are cultured in its sheltered waters.

The islets each carry a story in the local language. The largest, Kojima, lies across the mouth of the bay and was once planted with sugarcane. Majipanari is said to take its name from a man called Maja who was exiled there from the main island of Okinawa; others are named for the egrets that rest on them, for fan palms or for ebony trees. Two neighbouring islets, Mukupanari and Yumipanari — the "groom" and "bride" islets — are, according to local tradition, a young man and woman from the villages on opposite shores of the bay who were transformed into these islets after an ill-fated love. The traditional culture of Kabira village, beside the bay, was studied by American anthropologists in 1950–52.

Ishigaki, in the Yaeyama Islands, forms the city of Ishigaki in Okinawa Prefecture. Ringed by coral reefs, it lives from sugarcane, pineapples and tourism.

Getting there

Kabira Bay is on the north-west coast of Ishigaki Island, about 12 km in a straight line from the centre of Ishigaki city. The nearest airport is New Ishigaki Airport (ISG), also about 12 km away in a straight line.