Denpaku Sea Turtle: Tokunoshima Beach Kominka Stay

Feeling at Home in a Traditional Kominka in Tokunoshima

So if you’ve been reading this website, you may have realised how much I love the Amami Islands and discovered how delighted I was to find the Denpaku Properties built on a couple of the Amami Islands. Denpaku refurbishes/rebuilds/renovates traditional old folk homes (kominka) to create a local stay experience for island guests. On Amami Oshima we stayed at their Hotel Akakina (the renovated old local grocery store) as we missed out on booking one of their kominka properties.

However for Tokunoshima island, I was determined to stay in one of their kominkas, and was utterly delighted when I discovered a few available including this stunning one aptly named Denpaku Sea Turtle. With a name like sea turtle and ‘access to a private beach’ I was sold, and immediately emailed them to see if it was available (because yes when we were travelling there was no online booking system - now there is).

The kominkas are quite affordable, starting from ~5000JPY per person per night depending on the season. Ours was around 6000 - 7000JPY per person per night if memory serves me right.

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Welcome to Denpaku Sea Turtle

The property is a simple 2BR home with an open plan living/dining/kitchen area, an indoor bathroom and an outside shower.
You can see from the photos, that it’s been tastefully redone in a clean, simplistic Japanese traditional manner. Futons to sleep in, AC has been installed and there was an awesome antique writing desk I forgot to take a photo of.

The only thing I would note is that, its an older style home, if you’re tall prepare to duck your head in the doorways, and its near nature, there will be a few bugs and insects that find their way in.

Photo 12-7-20, 12 17 46 pm.jpg — Our Mini Area to Call Home

Lush, rich greenery dots the area, theres a local family also living not too far away and a couple other private properties further down the road, so you really do feel like you’re part of the local community
Whilst we were there, we also discovered we had a new friend in the local goats, not entirely sure who they belonged too, but every day this particular one was having a delightful breakfast on the plants in front of our kominka.
The photos on the bottom row below show the wooden decking at the back of the house, perfect for relaxing, sunbathing, chilling whatever you wish, the first glimpse of our private little beach spot and the slightly overgrown sandy path leading from the deck to the beach. You can hear the crabs scuttling away as you walk through this mini undergrowth. It was growing quite low (and a couple spiderwebs in there) so it was a bit hard for hubby to get through, however don’t fear if you venture out onto the road, there’s a simple way to reach the beach next door on an empty plot of land.

Photo 10-7-20, 2 21 26 pm.jpg — The Secluded “Private” Beach Area

We had this delightful stretch of beach really all to ourselves! Tho I’m sure the locals living near us do use it at some point, yet when we were there, we were always the only ones. It’s a little bit rocky and craggy, but its delightfully clear, and just lovely to explore.
Further up, a short walk from our little area we also discovered the local swimming clubhouse, which also has an area cordoned off by buoys, which is obviously a safe spot to swim especially for children. The water there is larger area without the craggy volcanic rocks

Relaxing in Crystal Clear Waters All to Ourselves

Enjoying our little slice of paradise, and the alternate path to the beach if you want to avoid the low hanging greenery and running into spiderwebs (I believe they do maintain the greenery growth, however we went slightly off peak).

The property is also known as Denpaku Sea Turtle, because during the months of June to July, sea turtles come to spawn on this beach, and from July to September you can see baby sea turtles returning to sea.

It did make me a weee bit paranoid, as I obviously didn’t want to destroy any sea turtle mounds, so hubby discovered me painstakingly looking at the countless tracks on the beach to make sure they weren’t turtle tracks! The countless tracks belonged to the many purple-blue crabs scurrying along the sand during the evening! Some were actually pretty big - about the size of my hand!

Photo 10-7-20, 2 29 28 pm.jpg — Beautiful Yonama Beach

Just taking a moment to enjoy some tranquil waters, you can spot the buoys in the photo as this was at the designated ‘safe swimming area’ of Yonama beach, which is where our little spot of heaven was located.

Some of the Most Beautiful Sunsets I’ve Seen

The breathtaking sunsets from our little spot at Yonama Beach. We loved simply perching on some rocks, having a bottle of wine and some soft tunes coming from our tiny speaker (always pack one) watching the sun go down.