So if you’ve been reading my blog, you may have read how delighted I was to discover the Denpaku Properties built on a couple of the Amami Islands, where they refurbish/rebuilt/renovate traditional old folk homes (kominka) to create a local experiences for island guests. On the Amami 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, 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 there is no instant booking system - may have changed as I write this).

The kominkas are very affordable, starting from about 5000JPY per person per night depending on the season. Ours was between 5500-6000 per person per night if memory serves me right.

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.

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!

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.