A Fork in the Road
A choice is made to experience Japan along its western rather than eastern seaboard
A time-constrained sailor starting in Kyushu and heading north through Japan has two paths from which to choose. Option 1: Stay in the left lane and sail up the Japan Sea (Nihonkai in Japanese) coastline, which is generally less crowded, or turn right through the Shimonoseki Strait that runs between Kyushu and Honshu islands, and enter the Seto Inland Sea (Seto Naikai in Japanese), which is where the bulk of Japanese society is concentrated. After consulting with my Japanese sailor friends, I decided on the Nihonkai side all the way to Hokkaido, which would set me up favorably for a passage to Vancouver, Canada in midsummer.
Between the early 1700’s and the early 1900’s, this coastline was a well-worn trading route for a type of Japanese merchant ship called Kitamae Bune. Traders seeking their fortunes would sink (pardon the pun) their fortune in one or several of these ships, buying various items at ports from Osaka to Hokkaido, and selling whatever they could at the next ports along their route. Because of this ancient trade, today’s ports are set up to receive vessels from elsewhere, and have an accommodating culture that harks back to that trading past.
Departing Kyushu from Fukuoka, I sailed northwest to the small fishing port of Tsunoshima at the southwestern end of Honshu (the largest of the Japanese islands and the one that contains all the big cities you’ve probably heard of) for a quick overnight stop. The next morning I carried on to Ezaki, where I stopped for one night to wait out a passing weather system. Not two minutes after my arrival, an unmarked car raced to the wharf, two police officers flashed their badges, and with stern looks on their faces asked to inspect my papers. All smiles, I invited them aboard (one stayed on the wharf), offered them tea (they refused), and presented them with all my stamped papers (they breathed a sigh of relief). Satisfied, they left and I went looking for lunch in this village of 1500 people, landing at a pizza place where I asked chef Sakaguchi-san to make me a pizza “omakase” (chef’s choice). He chose bamboo shoots and cheese, which was better than I expected.
The following morning I made my way to Yunotsu, another small fishing village of 2000 people. A major storm was imminent, and my position on their visitor dock put the boat broadside to the wind. Eventually I asked the fishermen if they recommended another spot in the harbor, and one of them offered to let me tie my boat to his, pointing into the wind.
I waited out the weather here for four days, visiting one of the local onsen (hot baths) three times and dining at several restaurants. The village was lively by Japanese standards, and here I learned first hand the effects of Japan’s aging and declining population (many homes are abandoned). At one of the restaurants, the owner/chef shared his story: He had been a chef at a French restaurant in Tokyo, but during the COVID lockdowns he got burned out and decided to move with his family to somewhere less stressful. The government had an incentive program to encourage people like him to move to rural areas and take over some of these abandoned homes, so that’s what he did. Now he owns a burger joint in this village that is blessed with many tourists.
When the weather cleared, I left Yunotsu for a day sail to Izumo Taisha, home of Japan’s second-holiest shrine1 and the birthplace of Japan’s “origin story”. It was also be the place where I would pick Kristen up for a week-long sail. Upon arrival at the port, I was greeted by a western-looking man and his Japanese companion. They helped me tie up the boat and I quickly learned that Jean is a French-American from Los Angeles, who met Aki-san while she lived there. With their daughter, they moved to Japan from the US a few years prior, and were renovating a newly purchased home near town.
After spending some time at their home and going for a walk with their two dogs, Jean and Aki-san offered to take me to the airport to pick Kristen up, and they gave us two bikes to ride for the couple days we were in town. Generosity like this abounds in Japan, and my only hope is that I continue to pay it forward.
With Kristen, I explored the Izumo Taisha shrine and its ample grounds. People from across Japan and Asia flock here for pay respects and make wishes.
We continued on an overnight sail from Izumo Taisha to Sakai Minato, a town on the other eastern side of the peninsula. One of the advantages of these ports is that docking is generally free; and one of its disadvantages is that the free berth is not always in a favorable location. In this instance, it meant a berth beside the biowaste treatment plant (not the best smell), and an almost hour-long walk to get to town2. We were rewarded at a Japanese desserts shop and sampled 6 types of their mochi, settling on one that had a fresh juicy strawberry at the core, coated in sweet cream and wrapped in a pink cherry blossom mochi “skin”3. After each having one, we bought 4 more to take back to the boat.
Because of our boat’s location at port, and the forecast calling for bad weather, we opted the following morning to leave for Tottori, legendary in Japan for its sand dunes. Like Sakai Minato, the port was far removed from the city, but unlike it, there was a bus stop a few hundred meters away that could take us into town and to the dunes.
We had more to see, and more on that more on that in the next post (I’m trying to keep these posts short enough to be readable, and also visually appealing).
Japan honors several religions although its traditional ones are Shinto and Buddhism. Shinto places of worship are called shrines, whereas Buddhist places of worship are called temples. I will use this terminology throughout this blog series. While shrines and temples are plentiful and visited often, religion does not seem to exert the kind of impact on daily life (or on politics) that one sees in the United States.
Moments like these make me wish I had a compact foldable bicycle. Space is limited aboard Wind River, and in this salty and moist environment you also have to think of corrosion. Carbon frames are corrosion free, as are belt drives and sealed gearboxes.
Most mochi I’ve had in Japan is made of a thick gelatinous outer layer with a sugar-sweetened bean paste on the inside, whereas the one in Sakai Minato departed from that tradition by creating a lighter bite focused primarily on the juiciness and sweetness of the strawberry inside, and a delicate outer “skin” with its own subtle cherry blossom flavor. I’ve looked everywhere since then for another, without any success.