Yonaguni--Just the Facts

Japan's southwest is Okinawa, and Okinawa's southwest is Yonaguni. The island is about 10 kilometers wide from East to West and only about 4 kilometers long from North to South. It is home to some 1,800 fishermen, farmers, and their families. Yonaguni is also a popular destination for serious divers. Some come to swim among the hammerhead sharks that frequent the west coast of Yonaguni. Others come to take a closer look at the mysterious rock formation that a local diver named Iseki Point.

"Iseki" means "architectural relic". The star attraction at Iseki Point is a massive stone formation that pokes its head above the water 100 meters off the coast. It rises 25 meters from the sea floor, a rectangular shape that measures 250 by 150 meters.

Some say it looks like a flattened pyramid, the kind that rises in steps like the ones that are found in South or Central America. With its five rocky layers, I think it looks like Fred Flintstone's version of a ship--a stoneage ocean liner that ran aground within swimming distance of the coast.

In any case, it is so big that a diver cannot take it in all at once. Profiling the structure's dimensions was the first job undertaken by the survey team from The University of the Ryukyus. For those who have the opportunity to travel to Okinawa, a scale model of the ruins--based on the university's survey team's data--is on display in the Loisir Hotel (Naha) lobby.