This beautiful Okinawa beach gives you the best of both worlds when visiting the prefecture [Pics]

Minnajima combines remote-island beauty with main-island-stay convenience .

It’s a long way to Okinawa from most parts of the rest of Japan.

Getting there from Tokyo, for example, requires you to first go to Haneda Airport, get through all your check-in procedures, fly for about two and a half hours to Naha, Okinawa’s capital city, and then, after you land, make your way to the beach.

This had us in a bit of a quandary on our recent trip to Okinawa.

The prefecture’s best beaches are on its outer islands, but getting to them tacks yet another time and energy-consuming segment onto the total journey, so we were thinking of maybe just making do with the coastal options on Okinawa’s main island, which are still nicer than the beaches in most other parts of Japan.

But then we took another look at the map and noticed Minnajima Island . ▼ Minnajima Island Minnajima is only about 15 minutes by boat from Toguchi Port in the town of Motobu on Okinawa’s main island .

We heard, though, that it’s in a whole other class in terms of beach beauty, and so we headed to the port to catch a 10:30 a.m. ferry to see the place for ourselves.

We booked our tickets as part of a package through marine sports/tour company Mermaid , paying 4,500 yen (US$29) for round-trip ferry fare, lunch, and beach umbrella rental, all of which turned out to be things we were happy to have sorted out ahead of time.

The same tour is priced at 3,500 yen for kids ages 6 to 11 and 500 yen for children 5 and younger (although that youngest age bracket doesn’t include lunch).

Almost every seat on the ferry was full, but the ship departed right on schedule, and as we drew closer to the Minnajima dock… …the ocean transitioned to a brilliant blue.

The color was so dazzling it reminded us of a tropical cocktail, and not only was the water’s hue breathtaking, but its clarity was too .

At the beach, the tour’s partner staff asked us where we’d like our beach umbrellas set up, and then planted them in the sand for us.

Even if you’re not ordinarily the sort of person who uses a parasol at the beach, we’d recommend one here .

While there are lockers and shower facilities, there aren’t really any shade-providing structures or vegetation.