Tokashiki Outer Reef

The exposed outer reef of Tokashiki Island drops from a wave-washed crest into a near-vertical wall that plunges past 40 metres, funnelling the nutrient-rich Kuroshio Current along its face and feeding enormous aggregations of anthias, fusiliers, and hunting trevally. This is the most challenging site in the Kerama group, with swells and current demanding experience and good buoyancy control, but rewarding competent divers with hammerhead sharks in winter and grey reef sharks patrolling the wall year-round. The coral health on the upper crest, at 8 to 15 metres, is exceptional — branching Acropora and massive Porites heads that escaped the bleaching events of the 1990s due to upwelling of cooler deep water.