Scribe: Laurie Ford (part of trip report from The Sea Canoeist)
Well here it is, as promised, brought to you at great expense by your roving reporter in Japan.

But where does one begin to describe this incredibly interesting experience. Certainly not as an ordinary trip report. The sea conditions were basically dead flat calm nine-tenths of the time. The people, their customs and their land made this the trip of a lifetime. - a never-to-be-forgotten experience.

First of all - did we achieve what we set out to achieve? Yes, and no. Our original aim was to circumnavigate Kyushu, and meet the people of Japan, to promote international friendship and understanding. The shipping agents and customs put an end to our circumnavigation before we even got on the water, by apparently deliberately with-holding our kayaks for ten days, and then ripping us off for additional cash to take delivery of them. We paid a considerable sum in Australia to a shipping agent and naturally thought that at Kobe we would sign them through Customs, and get going. Not on your life. Crown Pacific said, ‘yes’, the boats are here, you should have them in a day or two.

A couple of days later, ‘sorry, some problem with Customs, we need your passports.’ They had them for four days, which effectively stopped us going anywhere or getting any money changed, or doing any duty-free shopping, and only grudgingly gave them back, admitting no further progress with Customs. At one time, Justin had to write a letter to Customs saying he wished to import 5 kayaks, but this then fell through. We thought we might get them through as second-hand sporting equipment, which is actually what they were.

Eventually we got them, along with what we considered to be an exorbitant invoice, just for having a paper signed. Actually there were two separates bills, one for the Tasmania-Japan Kayak Exp., and one for the same amount for the British-Japan Kayak Exp., which Drew Delaney had to pay himself, while ours was at least split five ways.

Because of this unexpected delay we no longer had sufficient time to attempt the circumnavigation, and as well, the additional cost of Customs, plus the additional cost of living in a big city for ten days seriously cut into my funds, as well as Drew’s. We were to have “hot-footed” it by ferry along to Hiroshima to start from there, but it seemed pretty pointless now so I suggested the whole nature of the trip was changed, and we may as well paddle the whole Inland Sea at a leisurely pace and enjoy ourselves.

This we did, starting from the Youth Hostel at Tarumi, calling into Setoda, Hiroshima, Fukuoka, Hirado, Sasebo, and out to the Goto Islands - five and a half weeks, and approximately 600 miles.

The people we met were marvellous. Once you established contact with them, nothing was too much trouble. They’d do your washing, invite you in for a hot bath, and/or to stay the night, and some of them went to extreme lengths to do so, despite not being to speak one word of English. The few words of Japanese we knew, nobody seemed to understand anyway, so we quite often spent twelve hours staying with a family without being able to speak to each other.

Take the example of the guy at Sakito, our hop-off point across to the Goto’s.

Cec and I arrived about 1700 hours and pulled the kayaks up on the floating ferry wharf and made a couple of enquiries about ferries to the Goto’s, but there weren't any at all, although the girl came back about five minutes later and said there was one ‘passenger ship' a day, leaving at 1400. I think the difference between a ‘ferry' and a ‘passenger ship' is that the ferry is a drive-on, drive-off ferry as well as passengers - similar to the ferries to Tasmania, but a passenger ship is just for passengers. 1400 hrs was too late the next day to find out whether they could carry canoes as well, so we resolved to paddle at first light for the 35km crossing.

The only camping possibilities were on the floating wharf, or in the bus/ferry terminal building, but we went for a look around first, and had a meal in a restaurant just before dark. Then, as we were sitting on the wharf waiting for darkness before putting the tent up on the wharf we were approached by a gentleman from a house just across the road, who indicated (by sign language) I was wanted on the phone in the bus terminal.

This seemed a bit unlikely, but we went with him and he proceeded to ring someone and had a long conservation with them, before handing the phone to me. It was his ‘English speaking' brother who said we could use the terminal, or go to the house for the night. Communication was difficult and he apparently didn't understand my answers and we were asked (by sign language) to sit and wait for a while. Further phone calls were tried every few minutes, seemingly trying to get someone who wasn't home yet. About a quarter of an hour later the phone was answered and I was put on again. The English was a good deal better this time and we said we would be very happy to sleep in the house. Our new friend then assisted us to carry the heavily laden kayaks up the ramp and into the terminal building and indicated that anything valuable could be locked in the office. Then, we went to his house and after a beaut hot bath, settled down to some beer and dried squid (IKA, one of the few words I learnt) and TV, till futons (mattresses) were laid out for us to sleep on. We had our maps with us, plus a book on Australia, written in Japanese, so we could indicate where we were from, and the route we had paddled. Apart from this, we just couldn't communicate with each other, yet he had gone to considerable trouble to invite us in for the night - this was typical of our reception in many places. The next morning, at 0530 hrs our host was up and off, unlocked the terminal building and then I think, went off in a fishing boat. We arose quietly and left a few minutes later, leaving some souvenirs of Australia in our room, and were on the water paddling before 0600 hrs.

These little gifts were a bit of a problem to us; we were told before leaving Australia that it's part of the custom to present and receive small gifts when staying with people, but it was fairly difficult to carry a large number of really appropriate things, like hand-carved wooden souvenirs of Tasmania etc. We ended up taking a few dozen gold lapel pins with a map of Tasmania and a Tasmanian Devil on it (kindly donated by the Dept of Tourism) plus a heap of cloth Tasmanian Sea Canoeing Club badges, plus a roll of large posters of various parts of Tasmania, plus some tourist booklets on Tasmania (in English).

During our long wait in Kobe for our kayaks, I visited the Australian Consulate in Osaka to see what they could do (they weren't at all helpful in this respect) and found some rather good books on Australia with lots of colour photos, and separated maps and articles on all the states, the whole thing being printed in Japanese. I grabbed a dozen of these and passed them out during our trip, and then rang up later on in the trip and had some more posted on to us - these were ideal to point out where Hobart was, and to leave behind with our hosts. In return, at different places, we received various gifts, ranging from a green tea bowl, some lace edged serviettes, to $40 each to buy a souvenir before leaving Japan. This last gift was from an amazing Lady in Ube (sister city to Newcastle in NSW); her understanding of our situation about not being able to carry large souvenirs in the kayaks, plus other problems, showed a real awareness of our whole adventure.

Cec and I got up early one day to make Shimonoseki in one day, and made excellent time to Ube with a good strong tide. We were then faced with a long hop (10km) across a built-up wharf area, followed by an open crossing of 16km, so we pulled into a large dock about 12 noon. The dock contained probably about 100 fishing boats, and before we landed some men were heading for the steps and assisted in lifting the canoes out of the water, and then took a great interest in the construction of the kayaks, rudders, sails, etc and our route from Kobe. More and more people gathered round, so even though this was just a ten minute break for an ice cream, etc, we decided to change into dry clothes for a much longer break. In the meantime, this dear old soul had thrust cold bottles of orange juice into our hands, and when I started looking around for somewhere to change (with a plastic bag of dry clothes in one hand), she started to make circular motions with her hands. This lost me, but I followed her into a nearby house and she pointed to a washing machine and started to put water in it. At this stage we were both getting low on clean clothes (washing and drying clothes while continually on the move was a major difficulty), so I rushed back to the kayaks for all our dirty clothes, and sleeping sheets. After changing in the house we were escorted into the shop part of the house and sat down to some milk, and delightful cakes (obviously bought at some nearby store).

Then, more food turned up, including fish soup, rice, Nori, iced coffee, etc, a real picnic. Then a couple of reporters arrived but had real difficulty with any interviewing, and asked us to wait, and fairly shortly a little bus from the Ube Academy of Foreign Languages turned up, driven by the Director, Mr. Matsumuro. His English was A1, although with a terrible American accent, and we were duly interviewed and photographed in our kayaks.

Mr. Matsumuro then said that Mrs Nagai wanted us to stay the night with her, which we agreed to do, and were driven to her ‘other' house some distance away, a modern two-storeyed house and furnished with a mixture of Western and Japanese furniture. This was one of the few private homes we saw with ordinary armchairs, and a large bookshelf in the ‘lounge area'.

It was still early in the afternoon and Mrs Nagai took us for a walk through the nearby ‘Togyo Park', an absolutely beautiful place. At this stage of the trip we had been to many shrines, parks, and other tourist attractions, but this was the first one with grassed areas that the public were allowed on - something noticeably absent in most other places in Japan. This park was a combination of botanical gardens, fish farm, amusement park and zoo - you could buy bread sticks to feed the huge fish, hire pedal boats on the lake, watch the monkeys in their big arena, or just enjoy the botanical delights.

During our walk through here we came across six ladies with a mat spread on the grass, five of them being instructed by the other the ins-and-outs of the ‘Green Tea Ceremony'. We were invited to join them, and they were amazed when we got through it with all the correct actions, and complimented me on my ‘very good manners', little realising that only two nights before, an English speaking ship designer had put us up on the night of the typhoon, and had explained every little detail of the Ceremony. His hobby was the origins of the Green Tea Ceremony, so he was the last word on what to do during one. (This was the same night I had a bit of arm-wrestling with a friend who dropped in to assist us to consume large quantities of beer).

After finishing the tour of the park, Mrs Nagai took us out to a posh Chinese Restaurant for tea, where Mr Matsumuro joined us and interpreted again, the only real time Mrs Nagai and ourselves could really talk to each other. The thought of a 51 year old woman taking part in this canoeing adventure really stunned them. The next morning as we left, Mrs Nagai explained (through Mr Matsumuro) that as it was impossible to carry decent souvenirs in the canoes, she was giving us some money to buy something when the trip was over. We tried to explain that her hospitality was gift enough but she wouldn't have it, and it wasn't till we opened the envelope later in the day that we realised how generous she had been (I now have four beautiful wood-block prints and a hand-painted silk wall hanging). The TV cameras were there for our departure and followed us on a fishing boat for about a mile, as we sailed off into the distance, heading straight for Shimonoseki.

This gives some idea of the sort of reception we received at various places and it is impossible to mention every person that showed us some kindness, like the two old ladies that brought breakfast down to us one morning we were camped on the beach, or the various people that stopped to give us a lift when we were off sight seeing - but the very first incident stands out.

I left the others about ten minutes early to go along the coast a mile or two and into a village to post a letter, while the others were still packing.

Because of the rise and fall of the tide (average about eight feet in the Inland Sea) the best places to land were at the floating ferry terminals, where you had a two foot lift to get the kayaks out, or just leave them tied up for short periods. I clipped the bowline onto the chain of this particular one and asked a group of ladies where the Yubin Kyoku (Post Office) was. As usual, no-one could understand my Japanese, but waving the letter around got through to them and I was pointed up towards the centre of town. Walked for a while but ended up giving it to a couple of schoolboys walking to school to post, and made my way back to the wharf to push off quickly and wait for the others off the point. However, as I was walking down the ramp to the canoe, a patter of feet came up behind me, and there was a woman thrusting a plastic bag full of ice and flavoured milk drinks and cans of drink and boiled sweets into my hand. This was rather overwhelming, but I indicated to her to wait a moment while I clambered into the cockpit and balanced there while getting a jar out from behind the seat, and presented her with a Tasmanian badge, and a Club badge. This seemed to overwhelm her a bit and she rushed off along the wharf and returned with a full carton of cans of tomato juice for me. This created a minor problem as I balanced in the cockpit again and endeavoured to strap it on the rear deck on top of the pack, but I managed without falling in and then we waved to each other as I paddled out to meet the rest of the group who had just appeared. These people were just unbelievable, particularly in view of the apparent language barrier, but this didn't deter them at all. This went on and on, not at every port of call, but at a large number of them. At another lunch stop we accepted an offer to do our washing, although we had planned only a brief stop. At another even briefer planned stop, we spent 3 hours eating and boozing with a fisherman and his wife and relatives, before charging off to our next stop.

While on the subject of boozing, I would seriously challenge the view that Saki is the national drink - it has to be beer! A few times we were offered Saki, whiskey or wine, but invariably it was beer. There doesn't seem to be any licensing laws - beer in bottles or cans is readily available from just about any local shop, or from slot machines in the street. There are no hotels or taverns of the Australian variety; drinking mainly seems to be done in restaurants with a meal, or in the home, or in night clubs.

Tokyo has a few beer halls, which are similar to a tavern, but filled with tables and chairs - no breasting the bar here. Drinks or meals are served by waiters or waitresses, and you pay as you leave. On our arrival at Tokyo airport we rang a friend of a friend and he arranged to meet us at the Hostel and take us around a bit. This was a gentleman from the Swiss Embassy, lived in Tokyo for a while and knew the language, and very quickly got us into the tax-free shopping area - the Ginza. First off, we stopped at a beer hall and had our first sample of Japanese beer. It came in 3 sizes, small, medium and large - the small is about 10 oz, the medium holds a full bottle, and the large is something else again! Three types of local beer, Sapphoro, Kirin and Ashai, not quite as strong as Aussie beer, although Sapphoro draft gave me a hangover or two. On every island we visited, there were stacks of yellow plastic cartons, full of empties, ready for pickup - and a fair amount of litter on the beaches was beer bottles, or cans. Almost without exception when we camped we were able to walk up to the nearest town or village for a can or two. Surprisingly enough, drunks on the streets are practically non-existent, and drinking drivers don't exist at all - a drinking driver on his first offense loses his licence for three years, and permanently on his second offense. Now and again, late at night when eating places and clubs were closing there was the odd inebriate staggering home, though probably less than a dozen in eight weeks.

I've already mentioned our ship designer friend who took us in the night of the typhoon, and introduced us to the Green Tea Ceremony; his wife also put on a huge, typical Japanese meal, soup, raw octopus and fish, vegetables, rice, noodles,etc. etc. - far more than I could eat. I handled the first couple of courses okay - even got to the stage of being able to pick up individual noodles with the chopsticks.

Maurice, (our Swiss friend), also invited us home where his Japanese wife put on a Japanese meal, and explained what went with what, how it was eaten etc. Altogether we got a very good grounding in Japanese meals, but I have to confess I really don't go for it; but then, it's well known that I have peculiar eating habits anyway. My main food during the trip consisted of mince, rice and noodles; or bread, tomatoes, cheese and peanut butter - all readily available, even in the smallest town. Bread is normally bought sliced, done up in packets of 6 or 8 slices, about 50 cents. Now and then you could find a shop that had a full loaf, about 18 inches long, for about $3. But the best buy was the crusts. These are sliced off and discarded and if you could find a bakery you could buy (with a lot of pointing and sign language) a 2 foot plastic bag full of crusts for about 80 cents, which we got wherever possible in the larger towns and cities. Butter and cheese were the local product, although the Australian cheese was better and cheaper, when you could get it, which was 50% of the time. Butter kept for a week at a time before it became unusable, but I picked up some polystyrene on the shore and taped together an insulated box and never had butter melt after that. Fresh vegetables went off very quickly, and had to be used within a day or two. Fresh water - well we didn't see too much of it - the town supply in the big cities was like water out of a swimming pool, very heavily chlorinated, and almost undrinkable. I suppose finding water in a relatively small area as Japan for such a large population must be a bit of a problem, and they must use whatever is available and treat it fairly heavily. Fortunately, many islands and more remote towns had much better supplies, and twice we found fresh creeks spilling down into the sea. It would appear that distilled water is available to buy, because it is the custom when sitting down in a cafe or restaurant, to be supplied with a glass of water, and a wet towel (usually hot). In nine out of ten places the water was not the chlorinated stuff out of the tap. Incidentally, these glasses of iced water were refilled immediately they were empty; the service is second to none. The towels are also a blessing, particularly in the warmish weather - you break them out of the sealed plastic bag and wipe your hands and face with them, before eating. Because Japan is so populated, water was available every day if you asked for it at a house or a shop, but we carried 8 litres between the two of us which lasted a few days anyway.

Camping was little or no problem anywhere through the Inland Sea, there are thousands of small and large ‘beaches' - some of them quite pebbly, with plenty of firewood.

Maybe a trip report is in order here, before getting on to Hostels, toilets, baths, and other customs.

We shipped our kayaks out four weeks before we flew to Tokyo, direct from Sydney (left 10pm, arrived 6am next morning). There was no search at Customs, of any kind; we could have brought in any foodstuffs we'd wanted and Cec was quite verbal about this fact, not having brought any muesli and PAN 40 with her, on the advice of the Japan information service in Melbourne. Caught a bus into Tokyo, and had our first view of areas jam-packed with huge, high-rise buildings, and rice fields, almost all the way into the city.

The high rise buildings seemed to stretch from horizon to horizon, decorated with brightly coloured items of bedding hanging out the windows to air. The other very unusual items of interest were the golf practice nets - areas roughly 150 yards long and 100 yards wide (although varying a lot, due to available space), completely enclosed with a green net, and a building on one end with several balconies above each other. You can hire a section of one of these and spend all day belting golf balls down the field. It reminds you of the opening part of the Muppet Show where everyone is in their own special compartment - it reputedly costs about $80 per day. These practice nets were prevalent right throughout Japan, quite often on the roof of some of the high rise buildings.

Once in Tokyo, we found our way out to the Youth Hostel to leave our gear before Maurice arrived to take us down to the Ginza. The next few days were spent in shopping around, plus a bit of sight seeing - Ueno Park, Emperor's Palace, Tokyo Tower etc etc.

Four nights at the Hostel, then to Osaka on the Shinkhansen and by local train to Kobe and the Youth Hostel there. The next day we contacted the shipping agent and started getting the run around. During the next ten days various trips were done to the Naruto Straits, Castles in Osaka, Kyoto, till finally getting our kayaks. The British-Japan Sea Kayak Expedition of one arrived during our second day at Kobe.

About 8am on our 15th day in Japan we finally launched our sea kayaks and left Tarumi Youth Hostel and followed the coast west. Good warm day, but the smog reduced visibility to a mile or so, and this was the pattern for the next week or so.

Dropped in behind a tug and barge for a while to get a bit of a ride, then back into the coastline and through a forest of steel posts set out in a grid pattern, about 20 to 30 yards apart. The current through here was ripping along and these posts appeared to be there solely for the locals to tie their boats up to while fishing. Every Sunday, half the population seems to be along the shoreline, or out in rubber dinghies, fishing - usually with two or three rods each. The steel posts stretched away into the smog, and even though it was only Saturday, there were many fishermen out. The tide swept us through this area, and shortly after, we left the coast and headed into the murky distance. The first island appeared directly ahead (we had allowed 5^o for current) and we had a quick lunch break on the rocky beach. A few people were in skin-diving, in full wetsuits - even though it seemed warm to us. However, the water was the most polluted we had ever seen - we had paddled for some hours through a disgusting red soup-like liquid, heavily sprinkled with polystyrene, cans, bottles, plastic containers, timber - it was literally a floating tip. The thought of six weeks in this was rather terrifying, but fortunately it was just in this area, and a day or so later we were out of the worst of it, although the litter was still evident every day of the trip. After lunch we continued on to another island to camp. Many islands were coming into view now, all with an abundant growth of trees and shrubs, and all impossibly steep. However, this didn't seem to be any problem to the Japanese, almost without exception these islands were being quarried. Hills and mountains were being torn down and pushed into the sea, where an unending number of ships would come in, use their own grab to load up, then lumber off into the distance while another one took its place. All around Japan huge areas are being reclaimed in this dual action, the quarrying on the island leaving a flat area that can be built on or cultivated, and the reclaimed areas on the mainland can be used likewise. These quarries tended to spoil the beauty of the islands, but I guess in a land as thickly populated as this, and with so little land available, there are more important issues than conservation and wilderness preservation.

The next few days were a repetition of this, up early in the morning, paddle most of the day from island to island, shopping very briefly during the day at towns for an ice-cream, etc, and then camping as far away from a town as possible - which was rather a pity, as we were seeing Japan from half a mile off-shore, and barely meeting the people or looking around ashore at all. The other annoying point was the insistence to paddle against the current, which is rather odd when you consider you rarely see a white-water paddler paddling up-stream - they always go with the current. This isn't really important on a day trip with a club, because if the trip takes four hours or six hours, it doesn't really matter. But if you are paddling day after day then it seems pretty pointless to paddle for another two hours after the tide has turned. Let's suppose you are paddling against a two knot current for two hours, (which was quite often the case in among the islands). Your average speed of 4 knots is cut to 2 knots, so you only manage 4 miles for 2 hours extra paddling at the end of a long day anyway.

This same 4 miles the next day with a 2 knot tide (which increases your speed to 6 knots) will be covered in 40 minutes. So a paddler (‘A'), doing 8 hours a day is only gaining three-quarters of an hour per day on a paddler (‘B'), doing six hours a day (with the tide). It would take eight days (or 16 hours) of paddling by ‘A' to get six hours ahead of ‘B' - a pretty futile exercise when you are looking at a six week trip - a trip basically undertaken to spend a bit of time ashore to see Japan. Anyone wishing to paddle 8 hours a day and then spend the rest of the day on an isolated little beach can do it in Australia, without the cost of flying to Japan.

After about three days I had a bit to say about this ridiculous attitude, but it was obvious that if I wanted to spend some time ashore in a habitated area, I would have to do it by myself - so I pushed off about 2000 hrs one evening and did a seven hour night stint to the Ship Hostel Island. It was really magic paddling at night. The whole sea phosphoresces at the slightest movement, the bow wave and paddle stroke causing the Longboat to be lit continuously with a ghostly white luminance. Whenever I was close inshore I passed through schools of fish, apparently resting close to the surface and on my approach the whole area in front would be one big boil of white, with individual luminous tracks streaking off in all directions - quite often into the side of the kayak. The first time it happened, I nearly leapt out of the boat myself - after three or four ‘thump', ‘thump', ‘thump' along the bow. The shipping was just as thick after dark as during the day - fishing boats, ferries, and large ocean going freighters, but it was pretty safe. I had a small torch in my life jacket pocket to use on the compass fairly regularly, and to flash at any shipping getting a bit close - but there was always plenty of time to get out of the way once you picked up their red and/or green navigation lights. Very few skippers that night knew I was about, but the radar on the ferries leaves nothing to be desired; twice I was four to five hundred yards away on a parallel course when a searchlight flashed out and picked me up for a few seconds and then went out again - no searching around in my general area looking for me, just ‘zap' - and I was suddenly dazzled without any warning.

As I neared my destination I slowed down and decided to check a few fishing boats out, and paddled right up under their big stern working lights. The reaction was totally unexpected; there they were at 2am in the morning, miles offshore, and this strange looking bearded guy looms up out of the darkness in a narrow little kayak and sits watching them for a few minutes. Apart from one quick glance when they first saw me, I was totally ignored. I tried several boats, with the same result. I might just as well have been invisible. Either they were extremely polite and don't like to stare, or its an everyday occurrence and 100 other sea kayaks must have just gone past in the last half an hour!

Ashore, on the Ship Hostel Island and asleep by 0330 hrs; found the Ship Hostel by torch light and camped on the beach next to it. It is an old coastal type steamer that had been thrown ashore in a typhoon and left there on the beach.

Up at 0600 hrs and started to look around the island - very heavily cultivated, and people already working in the fields. Walking up and down the hills would be enough for most people, without actually working as well. They worked right up till 1800 hrs, a 12-hour day. Whether this is normal all year round, or just a rush job to get the fields ready for the approaching wet season, I wasn't sure, and couldn't ask anybody. There were a few nature trails through untouched land and I explored a few of these, and spent some time studying the workers and the different crops going in. That night I spent an hour or so in the only ‘coffee shop', drinking beer and eating with three of the locals - very friendly, but surprised when I left early. Next day I armed myself with my maps and books on Australia and wandered around a bit more, ending up in the school yard. This produced a flurry of waving hands, and “hallo, hallo”, from dozens of kids inside the classrooms. A teacher came out and spoke to me, closely followed by his class. Although his English was a hell of a lot better than my Japanese, conversation was still difficult, however, he indicated he and his class would like to see the kayak. This was over the hills and far away, so off we went, wending our way through the fields, with one young boy holding my hand all the way, most of the others strung out in a long line ahead. At the beach I showed them the canoe and all its gear and then changed and went for a demo paddle (and roll) for them (lots of clapping). The teacher then invited me back to the school for a shower and I accepted, as I'd seen a big gymnasium there and assumed it had showers. Back over the hills again just before lunchtime, and from the top we spotted the other 5 paddling along the shore, a mile or two away. I was in for a shock at the school. The shower was outside in the open, on the edge of the playground (cold water) and we arrived back just as the rest of the school trooped into the yard for fire drill - there I was in just my bathers, soaping up in front of dozens of primary children and teachers. I couldn't help seeing the funny side of it and nearly burst out laughing.

Later on, I showed some scenic slides of Tasmania to the class, with the teacher explaining each scene from a typed sheet that came with the slides. After leaving the school, I came across the others in the coffee shop, they having just got in and changed into dry clothes. Justin, Drew and myself then paid a quick visit to the school, and Cec an even quicker one! It was like being in a cage, with hundreds of squawking parrots - very friendly, but very noisy.

Headed off together in the afternoon and finally found a poor campsite a couple of islands away, but not before Justin got in behind a couple of fishing boats tied together and going like hell. Several of us tried to catch the wake as well, but couldn't hold it, and watched the boats and Justin disappear into the distance. He said later that it was only with a great effort that he was able to break free from the wake and wait for us to catch up.

Still looking for a fast direct route the next day, we headed straight out on the longest possible hop, to a small deserted island, where there was a good long stop for morning tea. Cec hadn't looked too good on this crossing, but refused a tow. Off this island, I pulled alongside a fishing boat for a ‘chat', and was offered 6 or 8 live fish of various types and had them dropped into the cockpit from a net on a long pole. It was a bit uncomfortable with these flapping around between my legs, but we went on across to the next large island and stopped for lunch. Cec was really ill at this stage and flaked on the rocks without eating. After lunch we toured on slowly looking for a campsite but they were fairly scarce. The lads nipped ashore at a town to get some fresh food while Drew, Cec and I kept searching, but there was nothing even remotely resembling a campsite. However, Cec was too ill to go any further, so we selected a nice flat piece of gravel at the intersection of two roads and started unpacking. The lads caught up, but decided to try the next island and said they would wait off the point for us the next morning. Drew and I walked to the nearest town, leaving Cec resting on the concrete sea wall. On our return, the tents were put up straight away and Cec retired immediately, again without eating. During the night it poured - the heavens opened up - the wet season was here.

At breakfast it was still coming down in buckets, and we sheltered under my fly while deciding a plan of action. Visibility was only about 50 yards in very thick fog, and the rain looked like continuing all day, so we decided to head for the Youth Hostel at Setoda. I went across to find the boys, while Cec and Drew made for the Y.H.. I overshot the point slightly, but realised my error when a ferry loomed up behind me, and I changed course and found the right beach straight off, a fire still smouldering, and three keel marks on the sand where the canoes had been dragged into the water. But where the hell were they? Which way had they gone? Should I leave them and head for the Youth Hostel in which case we would lose contact for maybe the rest of the trip, as the Youth Hostel was well off the planned route - or try and reason out a plan with a chance of success? It was reasonably obvious they had gone looking for us, as we had started a little later than normal; but with only a hand compass and no map or charts, they would have little chance of finding our campsite. So it was pointless going back there. I finally decided to aim for the middle of ‘our' island and stop every ten minutes and give a good yell. Fifty minutes later, I heard a faint answer away ahead, but it could have been Japanese for all I could hear.

Several minutes later, I tried again, and got a reply, and then Crum appeared through the mist, leaving Justin to wait for Lawrie who was doing a quick recce along the shoreline - miles away from our camp. After regrouping we set out for the Youth Hostel, not really sure where we were to start with, as the tide was causing eddies and whirlpools everywhere. However, the island appeared about where it should have been and we steamed away into a fast current, ferrygliding across to the left side of the Setoda channel, thinking the Y.H. was on that side. Found Cec's and Drew's kayaks on a small beach, and Drew sheltering from the heavy rain in a nearby house.

Cec had been taken by car to the Youth hostel (on the other side of the channel) and had flaked straight away. Then Drew had returned to wait for us. After a quick cup of coffee from the house owners and a look at the really solid fishing boat being built in the ‘garage', we towed Cec's canoe back to the other side to look for a landing closer to the Y.H.. The best alternative was a floating hydrofoil terminal, the top being about five feet from the water. Clambered up the heavy chains and hauled the canoes bodily up the side with our tow ropes, one each end. A beautiful hostess from the hydrofoil stood in the rain with an umbrella, and a tray of cups of coffee and interpreted for us to the captain. Her English was excellent and we received permission to leave the boats there for a day or so.

It was a bedraggled looking group, humping large amounts of gear through the streets to the Youth Hostel, where we were received without question, shown rooms, and told the bath was ready if we wanted it. And did we want it!

Youth Hostels are normally closed from 10am to 3pm but most of them made an exception for us when we arrived at unusual times.

Cec was laid up for two days without moving out of her room, and the lads decided to head off after the first night in the Hostel, and probably meet us in Hiroshima later. Drew and I did a bit of washing, and some shopping, and generally had a good rest ourselves. We had arrived here Friday lunch time, and left Sunday lunchtime, just aiming to paddle a few miles across to the top of the next island. Left with the tide after exchanging presents with our hosts, and also went back across the channel to leave some with the boat builder for his kindness.

Found a long, sandy beach with open shelters raised on stilts, so we carried the canoes up into these for the night. Down the coast the next day to Miyaura and caught a bus to a temple and museum full of national treasures, including ancient armour and weapons. Walked back to the dock, and toured slowly on in brilliant sunshine to the next island and camped on the beach.

On our way to Kure, Cec was given a huge fish of a type we'd never seen before by a really friendly guy fishing a mile offshore. Near Kure, there is a narrow channel under a bridge and had a good fall of water in it. We were sucked in and raced past the land on each side, evading boats coming the other way, and crashing through big standing waves. Camped on a small island, habitated by many big, black rabbits.

Had a meeting with Maruni Canoe Club arranged for 1700 hrs so no rush to get to Hiroshima. Took time to stop at a small village and a couple of islands, one with a furious amount of work going on - cleaning up the beach, painting pavilions, building shower blocks etc. - all in preparation for the coming summer holiday/swimming season of four weeks.

This very steep island had many tunnels through it to get to other parts of the island, for fishing purposes. Drew had taken a more direct route and was waiting on the end of Miyajima. He had arrived some hours ago, and briefly met the lads as they paddled off to Hiroshima Port, ready to get a ferry early in the morning for Shimonoseki. We went on along the coast to a reclaimed area about a mile square, and paddled through an entrance to find it contained a hell of a lot of logs. We finally located some members of the Maruni Canoe Club who were waiting for us, only to find we had to paddle back towards Miyajima again to stay in a rowing shed. The canoe club members put kayaks in the water to paddle with us, one of the paddlers was the fourth fastest woman in Japan, and first reserve for their Olympic team. As we paddled back along the coast, she and I started to get ahead of the others, she seems to be interested in how fast we could go, and probably doing a bit of training as well. I wasn't going to let her get away so kept speeding up as well, till finally we were miles ahead of the rest of the party, cruising along side by side, without actually paddling in a desperate sprint. Nevertheless I was straining every muscle while at the same time trying to look totally relaxed, at a slight disadvantage because I didn't know exactly where we were going, so had to keep a bit in reserve. We arrived pretty well together at the beach in front of the rowing shed, both with a happy grin on our faces, honour even on both sides.

When the others arrived and the Japanese paddlers helped us carry our kayaks up they were amazed at the heavy weight of my boat, and the fact that I had been able to keep up such a good speed.

We were taken out to a fancy restaurant by the company officials, and had two nights at the rowing shed, visiting Hiroshima by train during the day.

The rowing shed was owned by the company, and the members' food paid for by the company, the top floor of the shed was one large sleeping/kitchen/lounge area. Drew and I were allocated a couple of bunks, while Cec was put outside on the concrete deck, which was gradually having walls and roof etc put around and over it to extend the accommodation, but was pretty bare at this time - sheltered, but bare.
Laurie Ford.