Tropical Beach

Tropical Beach is an honest piece of city engineering, and it is fairest to judge it as exactly that rather than against the wild shores of the islands. It sits in Ginowan on the central west coast, a neat crescent of brought in sand wedged between the marina and the Okinawa Convention Center, with a calm netted swim, a popular barbecue area and the full run of changing rooms, showers and car parks. Twenty to thirty minutes from Naha, it is one of the most convenient beaches near the city, and on a warm weekend it fills with local families and groups firing up barbecue sets while children paddle in the sheltered water. For an easy swim and a cookout close to town, it does the job very well.

The honest catch is in the name's promise. Tropical Beach is not, in any wild sense, tropical. It is a man made urban beach on a built coast, calm and tidy and useful, but with no reef to snorkel, no dunes, no real sense of nature, and on a busy day the smoke and noise of the barbecue crowd is part of the deal. None of that is a failing, it is simply what the beach is for, and pretending otherwise would do a visitor no favours. A naturalist will enjoy the marina birds, the open sea light and an early morning swim, but will not find here the living coast that makes Okinawa special.

So take Tropical for the easy, sociable city beach it is, a safe netted swim for the children, a barbecue with friends, a sunset stroll along the marina path with the boats rocking and the light going soft over the East China Sea. Swim inside the enclosure, follow the lifeguards, and carry your barbecue litter out so the next group inherits clean sand. Then, when you want the real Okinawan sea, drive north to the natural beaches of the Onna coast, or take a boat to the Kerama islands where the clear reef and the quiet that a city beach can only hint at are waiting. Tropical is the handy beach by the city. The wild ones are a little further on.