Mark Stratton Diving with Japan ama women

‘Sea women’ have been freediving for shellfish off the coast of Osatsu for thousands of years, but the future of Japan’s ama divers is looking uncertain as a new generation fails to follow in their wake…

Resembling a sleek seal in her wetsuit, Sayuri emerged alongside her husband’s boat and swung a net filled with sea cucumbers on deck. With lithe agility she climbed on board and began examining her seafloor harvest.

Sayuri Nakamura is 67 years old. Her friend, Shigeyo Nakayama, who soon followed, is 71. They are ama (‘sea women’), Japan’s famed all-female shell divers, a tradition that dates back several thousand years. Yet most are now aged between 60 and 80 years old and, with numbers declining, it may soon be time to bid sayonara to a cultural practice shared with South Korea’s haenyeo diving women.

Sinking to new depths

I’d travelled to the craggy Pacific Ocean coastline of Ise-Shima National Park, in Mie Prefecture, to meet them. It’s a stronghold of the ama – around 100 currently dive off Osatsu town’s coast. Rivers from the surrounding forested mountains enrich the indented bays with nutrients, spawning abundant turban snails and expensive abalone. As far back as the 8th century, this seafood was deemed ‘miketsukami’ – pure enough to be offered to the deities of Japan’s most renowned Shinto shrine, Ise-Jingu, where the ama pray locally for safe dives.