Jogashima Island - Passport Diaries

If you drive south south south south south on the Miura Peninsula to its southernmost point, and cross the bridge to the Jogashima Island, then cross the island to the jagged coast on the far side, you can stare out at the Pacific Ocean, where there is nothing but blowing waves, typhoons and the odd tiny island until you reach Indonesia and Papua New Guinea.

Here on pointed volcanic rocks you stand above kelp-filled tidepools, sea cucumbers and nerites going about their business below, while waves move steadily in, swelling the levels of the pools closest to open ocean, which overflow into the next and the next. The neck to Tokyo Harbor lies back to your left; Sagami Wan to your right and across it, Mt. Fuji. Closer, along the island’s craggy coastline, you can see the see-through natural arch Uma-no-se, or Horseback Cave Mouth, which stands over a popular diving spot.

I could watch waves roll into tidepools forever. There are so many interesting things to observe: how the anchored kelp all drifts together, the messy tangle of the unmoored plants, sea creatures, seashells, limpets, seafoam, water movement, whirlpools, ebbing and flowing, how the critters react or don’t to the waves. Fascinating!

Tidepool baptism on Jogashima Island

Isaac decided to take this interest one step further by tumbling into a tidepool headfirst. He was scrambling down a rock face when he slipped on loose gravel, tried to catch himself, then catapulted headfirst and flipping into a murky green pool so he landed on his back with one foot up on a ledge over the rest of his body.

“That water was COLD!” he told me later. “And you know how I hate deep water! And it was such a surprise, and my foot was stuck so I couldn’t get my feet under me, and I scraped my whole leg as I fell in and got out!”

By the time I got over to him he was shivering and staring into space not answering his concerned friends’ queries. My neighbor Kelli cleared everyone off so he could have some space. Isaac and I sat quietly for a minute, and I rubbed his back. His hair dripped down his temples. He explained what happened, slipping, falling, the moment of submersion. A concerned Japanese woman came over to help dab at the blood running down his shin.

Isaac recovered quickly, dried a little less quickly, but was soon comfortable enough between the warm sunshine and the black rocks. He ate a banana and before too long he was clambering around with the neighbors again, a little more carefully, and little more contemplatively.

“Isaac, at first I was really impressed to see how careful you were being, even though you were going faster than Eloise and I , and I couldn’t see you,” I said as we all sat on his bed before bedtime that night. “You were making sure to watch the water, you weren’t getting too close or stepping where it was wet. But then you fell in! What if you had fallen into the water on the other side of that rock, into one of the tidepools where the ocean was rushing in?!”

We all shuddered. Let’s not think about it!!

Translation of The Rain Falling On Jogashima

It continues drizzling,
at the rocky shore of Jogashima.
The rain of the Rikyu gray.
Is the rain pearls, or fog of dawn,
or my subdued sobbing.
A ship sails around the tip of a Toriya
Your ship which hoisted its wet sail.
I row a ship.
I pull an oar to a song.
The song is the captain’s spirit.
It continues drizzling.
The sun hides in thin clouds.
The ship sails. The sail dims.
Rikyu gray
Kitahara Hakushu