Izu is located to the South of Hakone. It’s a peninsula with many hot spring spots, beautiful waterfalls, beaches and mountains.

I used to go scuba diving when I was younger but I stopped doing that for various reasons. Somehow I went diving again for the first time in many years.

Izu is known as one of the best diving spots in Japan. Particularly ” Ose Zaki ” in Numazu is known for its various kinds of fishes. It’s a part of the Suruga Bay and the cove faces to the north, so even if a tyhoon approaches that sea is calm .

I saw a little of Mt. Fuji. This time of the year, you can’t see it very often and Mt. Fuji in Summer doesn’t have snow on the top so it looks very different from winter one. Also the part is on the west side of the peninsula so we can see a beautiful sunset over the ocean.

Each tme I dive in the ocean I always feel something interesting about the sense of time. I don’t know how to put it. It always riminds me of the old Japanese folk tale ” Urashima Taro “. I’m going to write the plot roughly and if you know anything similar please let me know. I guess the author of this folk tale must have been a diver.

Urashima Taro saw a turtle on the beach. The turtle was being tormented by a group of children. He felt sorry for the turtle and made the children stop. The turtle was so thankful that he took Urashima Taro to a casttle at the bottom of the ocean. There Urashima met a pricess Otohime and they had a big party.Urashima stayed there having a lot of fun. But eventually chose to go back to the ” real world “. Otohime gave him a jewel-encrusted chest to take back to the land. She told him not to open it. When Urashima got back, he was confused because he couldn’t find anyone that he knew. In fact , 300  years had passed instead of three years ! Finally, he opened the chest and a cloud of smoke enveloped him. Then he turned into 300-year-old man.

Unlike this story, by my experience when I came back from diving I felt more energetic and younger , though.