‘Small fishing ports on far flung islands became potential cruising destinations’

Far forward on the horizon we noticed the sweep of a lighthouse and the pin pricks of avenue lamps alongside the coast. We did some fast maths – the variety of miles remaining in our journey divided by the variety of hours till dawn. The reply was that we have been arriving at Ishigaki, essentially the most southerly port of clearance in Japan, sooner than deliberate.

“We have to decelerate the boat,” my accomplice and crew Fiona stated with a tinge of anxiousness in her voice. “They stated we must always arrive at 0900, and precisely at 0900.”

We furled the genoa and slowly approached the island, marvelling on the pristine seashores and plush mountain panorama revealed by the daybreak. However we nonetheless carried a knot of fear in our stomachs, as a result of we have been about to clear into Japan, and we’d heard the entire well-worn warnings and complaints.

We’d left our dwelling in Hong Kong six months earlier to dwell the cruising round Japan dream. As an alternative of taking the most well-liked route into Southeast Asia through the Philippines, we sailed north-east, spending a winter in Taiwan earlier than carrying on to Japan.

I used to be met with shock once I advised sailors in Hong Kong that we have been foregoing the identified delights of the Philippines for the unknown challenges of cruising round Japan.

They jogged my memory that Japan was very bureaucratic, and clearing a ship into the nation with out talking Japanese could be an enormous problem.

Cruising round Japan. Photograph: Cameron Dueck

There’d be obscure guidelines and pedantic officers, and as soon as we have been within the nation, the dearth of a cruising tradition and infrastructure meant our time could be consumed with paperwork each time we exited or entered a port. The place would we moor? And wasn’t Japan very costly?

I steered Teng Hoi, our Hallberg-Rassy 42F, previous Ishigaki’s formidable sea wall and in the direction of the pier we’d been instructed to reach at. It was 5 minutes earlier than 9 as we secured our traces, however there have been no officers in sight.

Teng Hoi is a Hallberg-Rassy 42F. Photograph: Cameron Dueck

“That’s odd. They stated they’d be right here to satisfy us at 9 o’clock,” Fiona noticed as we scanned the port.

Then, simply as our ship’s clock struck 0900, greater than a dozen officers stepped out of their autos and strode down the pier in the direction of us. They wore quite a lot of crisp uniforms – Coast Guard, Quarantine, Immigration, Customs – complimented by white laborious hats on their heads and clipboards underneath their arms.

One after the other they boarded the boat, every equally well mannered, organised, and environment friendly. They used a small digital translation gadget to ask just a few questions, then perform their process earlier than thanking us, giving us a small bow, and climbing again up on the pier.

One officer requested to see our heads, garbage bin, and meals storage, apparently to ease their hygiene considerations. One other swabbed counter tops and cupboards for medicine, and one other made us get rid of all our grains and greens, whereas one was tasked with spraying the soles of all of the sneakers he may discover.

Conventional tub boats on Sado – they’re simply manoeuvrable in Sado’s many slim, winding coves. Photograph: Cameron Dueck

Two hours later my hand was cramped from signing papers, however the final official was stepping off the boat, bowing and welcoming us to Japan. “That wasn’t too unhealthy,” I stated, feeling a wave of aid.

It was the primary of what could be many revelations as we explored Japan by sail. As an alternative of a bureaucratic problem we discovered pleasant officers, a myriad of mooring choices, and a stage of security and ease that few different cruising locations can supply. And on prime of that, the weak Yen made Japan extra inexpensive than ever.

Cruising round Japan

It’s true that Japan was as soon as a troublesome place to go to aboard a international vessel. From 1633 to 1868, throughout the Sakoku or ‘chained nation’ period, Japan had solely minimal, strained relations with different nations, and few foreigners have been allowed into the nation.

The writer with a fish caught within the Sea of Japan. Photograph: Cameron Dueck

Regardless of the eventual opening up of the nation, notably after World Struggle II, Japan continued to be a troublesome port of name.

Regardless that it has greater than 3,000 ports, solely about 130 have been open to international vessels, creating challenges for yachts that wished to cruise the nation’s 14,125 islands stretching greater than 1,600 miles from the East China Sea within the south-west to the Sea of Okhotsk within the north-east.

These difficulties resulted in 2018 when Japan launched a brand new system that enables foreigners to use for a closed-port allow, which gives unfettered entry to all of the beforehand closed ports, at any time, with out reserving or, most often, cost.

Abruptly the various small fishing ports on far off islands turned potential cruising locations, and voyages up and down the coast may simply be damaged into day sails with nights in a harbour.

Overseas boats may apply for a Naiko Senpaku, which exempts them from having to report back to the Coast Guard and customs every time they enter or depart a big open, or clearance port. And, there are not any limits on how lengthy a international vessel can keep in Japan.

Mountaineering in Daisetsuzan Nationwide Park. Photograph: Cameron Dueck

But few cruisers are conscious how this has opened up one essentially the most spectacular cruising grounds on the planet. Most international yachts that do go to Japan use it as a transit level on their strategy to Alaska and breeze by means of in a single or two months. We determined to take it gradual.

On the perimeter

Our Japanese cruise started on the southern finish of the Ryukyu (Okinawan) Islands, which supply tropical climate, white sand seashores and heat, crystal clear water.

That is essentially the most far off hinterland of Japan, geographically, traditionally and culturally. The Ryukyu Kingdom was a tributary state of Ming China, ruling the string of islands from Southern Japan to Taiwan for about 450 years earlier than annexation by the Meiji authorities of Japan in 1879.

Teng Hoi moored in Amami. The island is in style for snorkelling and scuba diving. Photograph: Cameron Dueck

Okinawa Island is the biggest island within the chain, and Yonabaru Marina on its south-east shores is a well-liked place for visiting yachts to clear into Japan and revel in an inexpensive raise out.

The distinctive Ryukyu tradition continues to be current in native dialects and delicacies, such because the indigenous liquor Awamori, distilled from long-grain rice, and delicacies that leans closely on indigenous tradition in addition to Chinese language influences. This nuanced id additionally features a sturdy South Pacific facet, with vibrant Hawaiian shirts a standard sight on native streets.

The islands have been solely returned to Japanese rule in 1972, whereas the Individuals nonetheless hold 30,000 energetic navy personnel on the island – a delicate level with native residents. In the present day, the southern half of Okinawa is a largely charmless suburbia whereas the northern half sports activities lush parks and dream-like conventional villages.

From Okinawa we sailed to the Kerama Islands, a small archipelago simply 20 miles east of Okinawa Island. We made the journey in pouring rain. First we have been beset by 35-knot squalls, after which needed to motor by means of windless gray seas.

We have been caught within the begin of the spring wet season, often known as the Baiu, which begins in Okinawa in early Could and lasts a few month.

The flower fields of Furano on Hokkaido Island. Photograph: Cameron Dueck

The Kerama’s have been tranquil and empty, with few different yachts. We dropped anchor in a sandy bay and spent a number of days exploring the colorful reefs, accompanied by sea turtles.

We spent the subsequent a number of weeks crusing north by means of the Ryukyu Island chain, the place the swell of the Pacific Ocean was our fixed companion. We saved our passages to 24 or 36 hours, stopping in quiet anchorages with vivid reefs and sea life, or in small fishing harbours shielded by large concrete seawalls.

The spring migratory cyclones and anticyclones, which drift eastward, introduced continually altering circumstances, from sturdy breezes to calms.

We sailed on to Kyushu Island, the primary of the principle 5 islands of the archipelago. Hirado and Nagasaki, two neighbouring ports on the west coast of Kyushu, have been Japan’s foremost buying and selling ports for hundreds of years.

We arrived in Hirado on a brisk wind, sped alongside by a flood tide simply because the solar was setting. It’s a cosy little port guarded by an island that turns the sturdy tidal currents into tangles of waves and whirlpools simply outdoors the doorway. The encompassing hills are dotted with centuries-old Japanese and European properties, temples, shrines and church buildings.

Article continues beneath…

Ming dynasty

Hirado is the birthplace of Zheng Chenggong, also called Koxinga, the Ming common and pirate who drove the Dutch out of Taiwan within the seventeenth Century.

The port was used for commerce with Korea and China for hundreds of years earlier than the primary Portuguese ship arrived in 1550, marking the primary interactions between Japan and the West. Then the Dutch sailed into port in 1609, constructing Hirado into one of many main worldwide transport ports of its day.

Conventional Japanese breakfast. Photograph: Cameron Dueck

We moored on Hirado’s free public pier in entrance of the museum, a reproduction of the warehouse the Dutch constructed on the identical website in 1639, making it the primary western-style constructing in Japan.

However Japan’s Tokugawa Shogunate grew nervous on the rising would possibly of the maritime merchants, demolished the buying and selling home and compelled the Dutch to maneuver their operations to Dejima Island, a man-made island within the coronary heart of the port of Nagasaki.

By the point we sailed into Nagasaki almost 4 centuries later, land reclamation had swallowed Dejima island. Nevertheless, cautious reconstruction and refurbishment of a number of historic buildings had turned the buying and selling fort right into a full of life museum telling the story of Japan’s love-hate relationship with maritime commerce.

The warehouses smelled of tarred hemp rope, and ornate parlours and eating rooms advised the story of how bored Dutch merchants have been saved remoted from the restof Japanese society. By way of the bleary leaded glass windowpane I may see our yacht tied up on a close-by pontoon.

Japanese officers aboard Teng Hoi to clear the boat into the nation. Photograph: Cameron Dueck

Wild sea of Japan

As we left Kyushu we had to select. We may flip east into the Seto Naikai, a nicely protected inland sea with main cities corresponding to Hiroshima and Osaka on its shores and arguably Japan’s hottest cruising floor, or we may proceed north alongside the Japan Beach.

If Okinawa is Japan’s frontier, the Sea of Japan’s coast is its rural boondocks. Agriculture, mining and forestry have helped form the panorama, however giant expanses of wilderness stay. The shores and its sprinkling of outlying islands have been the final to be developed.

Mountaineering in Daisetsuzan Nationwide Park; Daisetsuzan is the biggest nationwide park in Japan and is a paradise for hikers and lovers of the outside. Photograph: Cameron Dueck

We have been looking for wild nature and journey, so we selected the Sea of Japan. It meant we’d be extra uncovered to the climate, which was starting to transition from prevailing north-westerlies to the summer season monsoon winds from the east, and we have been additionally starting to maintain a pointy look ahead to the summer season typhoons that sweep in from the Pacific Ocean.

We loved a delicate attain up the coast to Yunotsu, a sizzling springs city courting again to the feudal ages with a number of conventional visitor homes. Public baths exist in almost each Japanese port, however some are extra well-known than others primarily based on their mineral combine – the exact particulars of that are generally displayed on the entrance.

Whereas we soaked in Yunotsu’s mineral-rich waters, our boat waited alongside the free fishing pier within the city’s harbour, a slim cleft within the rocky coast. Cruisers have 4 mooring choices in Japan.

There are various wonderful and inexpensive marinas, and in each one we visited we discovered their workers to be exceedingly useful in providing recommendation, contacts, and help.

You may also anchor, as we did within the bays of the southern islands, however this isn’t a standard follow round the principle islands. Anchoring ought to solely be completed in distant bays, with further warning and lights at night time.

A Japanese homestay in Okinawa. Photograph: Cameron Dueck

Native fishermen are unaccustomed to seeing anchored yachts after they exit fishing at night time, and lots of bays are set with nets.

Japan additionally has a community of sea stations, modest docks catering to visiting pleasure boats. These are less expensive than marinas, however supply fewer providers, could require pre-booking, and are sometimes geared in the direction of boats underneath 40ft.

We spent a lot of our time within the fourth possibility, Japan’s ubiquitous fishing ports, to which we had free entry because of our closed port allow.

Fishing ports are primary, and the scent of fish can change into bothersome, however coastal cities and villages are constructed round their ports, placing most providers inside strolling or biking distance. And, as a result of these are working ports with an energetic fleet of fishing boats, you’ll be able to at all times discover gas and mechanics.

The draw back of fishing ports is that they require yachts to tie to a concrete sea wall or pier. With appreciable tides and a attainable swell, we shortly realized to make use of outsized fenders and fender boards to maintain the barnacle-encrusted concrete at bay.

Teng Hoi at anchor in Amami, a part of the Ryuku Islands. Photograph: Cameron Dueck

We have been additionally adapting to native customized by way of navigation, utilizing the New Pec smartphone app to information us alongside the coast. The Japanese navigation app gives increased element charts of small fishing ports than Navionics, and it exhibits the place fishermen have been permitted to put nets.

It additionally contains granular climate forecasts, wonderful tide information, and AIS monitoring of site visitors – although we have been repeatedly caught off guard by the various yachts, fishing boats and even giant industrial vessels that didn’t transmit through AIS.

Northern frontier

Summer time was upon us. We continued up the Sea of Japan to Hokkaido to flee the warmth, arriving in Hakodate, on the island’s south coast. Our arrival, operating forward of 30 knots of wind on a sunny day, put us in a giddy temper, as we’d now accomplished the sail from Japan’s southern frontier to its northern outpost.

Conventional buildings in historic Hirado. Photograph: Cameron Dueck

Our far north was Otaru, a herring boomtown within the 1860s, nestled in Ishikari Bay. The picturesque Otaru Canal and its warehouses have been restored within the Eighties, with their patina of the Outdated Meiji Period stone creating an ideal backdrop for his or her new life as outlets and eating places.

We left the boat in Otaru as we explored inland, happening excessive treks within the distant Daisetsuzan Nationwide Park, automobile tenting in wealthy agricultural valleys, and getting our fill of icy chilly Sapporo beer, named after the island’s capital.

In September, when the prevailing north-westerly wind gave us a superb push south, we started our return voyage down the Sea of Japan. We made 36-hour hops down the coast, visiting majestic previous shrines and mooring in island fishing ports so clear we ate sea urchin, or uni, plucked proper off the harbour partitions.

Crusing alongside the coast of Hokkaiodo. Photograph: Cameron Dueck

In lots of ports the Japanese Coast Guard visited with their clipboards, eager to know the place we’d been and the place we have been going. They have been fast to supply info on the place one of the best eating places have been positioned, and in a single port they even took away our garbage for us – a uniquely welcomed aid as Japan has an elaborate and strictly enforced disposal system that usually makes it troublesome for cruisers to do away with waste from the boat.

The hospitality we skilled as cruisers shocked and humbled us. Mooring on public piers invited curious onlookers who have been eager to say whats up and welcome us to Japan. Typically they returned with items of greens from their backyard, a bottle of sake, or a field of fancy desserts. Numerous individuals provided assist, secretly paid for our meals in eating places, or provided us rides.

Serving to a farmer harvest rice in Sado. Photograph: Cameron Dueck

The warmest welcome got here in Sado, an island off the coast of Niigata. Previously an island of exile, after which the location of a wartime pressured labour gold mine, it now attracts inventive urbanites looking for a quiet rural life. They’ve constructed a vibrant group of natural farms, sake breweries, stylish eating places and bakeries.

We pitched in to assist with the apple and rice harvest, joined a noodle making gathering, and loved a ‘moon rising occasion’ whereas sitting on tatami mats in a century-old picket home – with Google Translate bridging the language hole. Once we lastly left harbour our new mates got here to the pier and beat an enormous drum in farewell.

A late season storm was threatening us from the south, so we pushed laborious for the safety of the Seto Naikai, 450 miles to the south-west. The winds have been simply beginning to construct as we slipped into Kanmon Kaikyo, or Straits of Shimonoseki, the slim winding channel that led us to security.

Right here the winds have been diminished, and there was no swell, however we nonetheless needed to take care of 3-4m tides, highly effective currents and a few of the largest whirlpools on the planet, requiring cautious passage planning and timing.

Vehicles ship gas to the piers in lots of fishing ports. Photograph: Cameron Dueck

After months of exploring Japan’s most far-flung islands there was an unmistakable sense of getting into the center of the nation as we sailed into these protected waters, the place we noticed extra exercise and higher infrastructure than anyplace else we’d been. Right here, every island and village was a cultural and historic jewel, and we caught ourselves fascinated by how way more of Japan there was but to see.

Distances have been additionally shorter, permitting simple day sails of 30 to 40 miles so we island hopped in the direction of a small marina on Shikoku, the final of Japan’s 4 foremost islands. The seas have been flat, with regular 10 to fifteen knot winds carrying Teng Hoi to her winter port.

When you loved this….

Yachting World is the world’s main journal for bluewater cruisers and offshore sailors. Each month we’ve inspirational adventures and sensible options that will help you realise your crusing goals.

Construct your data with a subscription delivered to your door. See our newest affords and save at the least 30% off the quilt worth.