taking the half day your to Hatenohama from Kumejima will give you two-three hours on the actual Island which in my opinion is absolutely not enough to fully enjoy it, so better go for a full day (they offer a lunch box too). bear in mind that there is no vegetation, no trees, basically no shade on the entire flat, white sand bar and so the sun can be really scorching. the wind is often quite strong so it’s a little bit hard to take good photos and you have to play with what you got. you can stroll for hours and hours since this sandbar is really huge and you can have your secluded place as the other visitors will scatter around. it’s never like an actual Beach experience with loads of people. the ocean is very pleasant to swim in and it has two sides one very calm and safe enough for your kids and you can also try some snorkeling but keep in mind that if the sand is white the speech is sent to be pale colored. from the other side of the SandBar the ocean is always rough, with waves and stronger current. I love both sides but I often don’t have enough time for swimming because I’m going there mainly to take photos. on the way back the boat will give you a tour of some atolls and we could spot a lot of huge sea turtles swimming around our boat at high speed and that was quite entertaining although pretty difficult to take a good photos in such situation. the price difference is not that big so really you should go for the full day tour and bring some large towel or cloth to cover yourself with like a tent and the void the sun and the wind when you don’t want them. the tours can only be booked from the Kume Island! I went with the morning tour but the position of the sun was perpendicular on top and that made it quite difficult to take good pictures because it will put you in your own shadow. so consider that, the position of the sun and the strong wind when you go there for fashion photos.
AloJapan.com