The Dolphin Island Restaurant is one of those weird, unique places I love Japan for – and it’s one of the few urbex insider tips in Okinawa. It is also one of the toughest places to access. Not because of security, but because of timing. Nowadays located just a stone’s throw away from the Okinawan coast the Dolphin Island Restaurant can be reached by wading through the water if the timing is right and the tide is low…
After a day of exploration *Michael* was kind enough to revisit one of the places he explored when *he went to Okinawa in 2011*. The Dolphin Island Restaurant is a gorgeous little island, sadly there is little to nothing known about its history. Massive concrete and wooden electricity posts let me come to the conclusion that the current supply came from the mainland about 300 meters to the east and that it was constructed in the 1950s or 60s. Nowadays you can almost walk up to the place from the north, getting as close as maybe 10 meters, but I doubt the area looked like that when the restaurant island was still open for business. Judging by the shape of the close-by warehouse area / harbor I’m pretty sure that this part of Okinawa is artificial land, one of the many reclamation projects Japan did in the past couple of decades – this one was limited by the Dolphin Island, but it got as close as possible…
I can imagine that business was though back in the days, because without access via a bridge all the visitors must have gotten to the island by boat – and that most likely meant no business on stormy days and that it took quite some effort by potential guests to reach the restaurant.
It’s said that the Dolphin Island Restaurant was not only a restaurant, but also hosted an aquarium – hence the name “Dolphin Island” or “Hiituu Island” in Okinawan dialect.
Since it was getting late that day and the tide was already rising I refrained from wading through the water and stayed on dry land. With proper equipment like airtight bags to get my camera to the island safely I might have taken a swim, but given the situation that day I decided to just take some photos and a video. Later on Michael and I went to the original coast line and took some pictures from the beach, waiting for the sun to set – not our lucky day, because the sky got cloudy for the few couple of minutes we were hoping for a spectacular horizon…
And with that the Dolphin Island Restaurant became the third location on Okinawa (after the *Nakagusuku Hotel Ruin* and the *Sunset View Inn Shah Bay*) I would like to revisit one day… Well, at least the last location on Michael’s and my *trip to Okinawa* was a great success – somewhat of an original find and a really unique location with an exciting and unusual history! Up next on Abandoned Kansai…
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Abandoned Kansai 
I actually live just across from here, and I heard that it was built to be a restaurant, by the people who own the Seaside Drive-in Restaurant across the way, but when they went to get approval for electricity connection etc, they were rejected, and the restaurant has been abandoned ever since. There is great snorkelling around here though, including clown fish!
http://www.seachangeokinawa.blogspot.com
When I was stationed in Okinawa (2004-2006) a friend of mine told me about this place and we went there to explore. The tide was high so we swam over to the low set of stairs and went inside. The first room/building was small, kind of like a coat room. After that, if memory serves, there was a short walkway to what looked like a bus stop/message board area. Further up to the left was the stairs to the top floor. The uppermost room looked like an actual restaurant/bar with a balcony. As you descended the internal stairs (in a large square pattern), it appeared that the area inside was at one point an aquarium. I don’t remember much about the basement but there was an outside walkway leading into a cave with what looked to be a shrine with Yen and old candles all around. I can’t correctly remember where, but there was a wide concrete bridge that ended up on another rock with a platform – I assume it was for enjoying the ocean view/breeze.