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See in Miyakojima · #4 of the port's ten

Higashi-Henna Cape

~1h on site — the round trip from the gangway, with the 60-minute margin kept aside.

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Photo: Jakub Michankow / CC BY-SA 4.0

Tap a photo to see it large. 3 photographs, each credited.

Round trip
1 hr
From the ship and back
Fits
a 2–3 hour stop ashore
Margin already counted
Getting there
Car ~40 min
See the rides below
Booking
Just turn up
Nothing to reserve
Why we send people here

A two-kilometre grass blade of cliff dividing two seas, lighthouse at the tip. Nationally designated scenic beauty, and the island’s best walk that is not a beach.

Why it earns the hours
  • Short enough to be certain of: 1 hr door to door, so even a tender day works.
  • Free to visit — except the lighthouse climb.
  • On a 4–6h ashore call our verdict is "Yes, one anchor of two" — pair it with the east-coast viewpoints, or trade beach time for it.
Before you count on it
  • Cape always; lighthouse ~9:00–16:30 — lighthouse ~¥300.
  • No single published ride covers this one. Budget for a taxi both ways, or fold it into a guided day.
Read the full Higashi-Henna Cape guide →
The story

Why Higashi-Henna Cape is famous

A two-kilometre limestone spit reaching east into the Pacific, with a lighthouse at the end and cliffs on both sides. It is a nationally designated Place of Scenic Beauty and one of the few Okinawan capes where you can see weather arriving from a long way off.

The island’s southeastern corner narrows to a two-kilometre blade of raised coral, ocean on both sides — the Pacific beating the cliffs to your right, the East China Sea lying flat to your left, sometimes in visibly different moods at once. It is a nationally designated Place of Scenic Beauty, and the island’s one great walk that involves no sand.

Along the path sit house-sized boulders that look decorative and are not: they are tsunami stones, thrown onto the cape by the great Meiwa tsunami of 1771. The prettiest walk on the island is also its most legible geology lesson.

The full Higashi-Henna Cape guide →
Before you go

Things worth knowing

  • Climb the lighthouse — around a hundred steps, ~¥300, and the only view that shows the cape’s full blade.
  • Wind is the cape’s weather even on calm days; hats need a hand on them.
  • Easter lilies carpet the cape in April–May, which is its single most photogenic window.
  • There is shade at the parking end and none on the walk — carry water in summer.
Where it is

Higashi-Henna Cape and your ship

Both pins on one map, so the distance is a fact rather than a feeling.

The arithmetic

Where the 1 hr goes

Counted from the moment you step off the gangway. The hour before all-aboard is not in this bar; it is already set aside.

Out40 minCar ~40 min
There15 minWhat you came for
Back40 minTo the gangway

40 minutes each way is the honest figure for car ~40 min, not the optimistic one. If your ship is late, cut the 15 min in the middle. Never cut the hour at the end.

If you have longer

What fits alongside it

Each of these still lands you back aboard with the hour to spare on a 6-hour stop ashore.

Mango, whole, in season1 hr 40 min for bothJune to August the island’s farms serve their own fruit over ice at parlour counters. Out of season, honesty says skip it — frozen mango is not the same argument.Snow salt & awamori1 hr 40 min for bothYuki-shio powder salt from reef seawater, and the island distilleries’ awamori — the two bottles that carry Miyako home in a daypack.Sunayama Beach2 hr for bothOver a sand dune and down to a cove with a wave-cut arch. The arch is roped off after rockfalls — honesty requires saying so — but the cove remains the island’s prettiest small beach.
Asked about Higashi-Henna Cape

Questions people send us

Is Higashi-Henna Cape worth the drive from the cruise port?

On calls of six hours or more, yes — it is the island’s best non-beach sight and its finest walk. On short calls the 80-minute round-trip drive eats the day; the Irabu bridge delivers comparable drama at a quarter of the distance from the quay.

What are the huge boulders on the cape?

Tsunami stones — coral blocks the size of houses thrown onto the clifftop, most of them by the Meiwa tsunami of 1771 that devastated the Miyako and Yaeyama islands. They are studied, dated and left where the sea put them.

The day this belongs to

Routes that already include it

Each one is a finished day we have walked and timed, with this stop in it. Read the route rather than assembling it yourself.

The grand loop8 hours or more · ~6.5h door to doorLong calls with a charter — the whole island, without the rush
Pairs well with

What to put beside it

Each of these still lands you back aboard with the hour to spare.

Build your own day →
1 hr 40 min for both

Mango, whole, in season

June to August the island’s farms serve their own fruit over ice at parlour counters.

See the detail →1 hr 40 min for both

Snow salt & awamori

Yuki-shio powder salt from reef seawater, and the island distilleries’ awamori — the two bottles that carry Miyako home in a daypack..

See the detail →2 hr for both

Sunayama Beach

Over a sand dune and down to a cove with a wave-cut arch.

See the detail →
The one rule: be back on board 60 minutes before all-aboard. Build the whole day on the Miyakojima plan page.