Nagura Bay and Fusaki Beach, Ishigaki

This camera, run by the Yaeyama Live channel, looks out over Nagura Bay on the west coast of Ishigaki Island, taking in the Fusaki Beach area along the same shore. Because the coast faces west into the East China Sea, the whole frame turns into a sunset view in the last hour of daylight.

The bay is more than scenery. At the mouth of the Nagura River sits Nagura Amparu, a mangrove estuary and tidal flat registered under the Ramsar Convention in 2005 and part of Iriomote-Ishigaki National Park. Six mangrove species grow around the bay, and the flats draw wading birds and fiddler crabs when the tide is out.

Tide is the thing to watch here, more than weather. At low water the flats open up and the bay reads as a wide sheet of wet sand and channels; at high water it is simply sea. The sunset over that combination, with mangrove silhouettes in the foreground, is commonly called the finest on the island, and this camera is a fair way to judge whether tonight is worth driving out for.