Yakushima Island, Japan

The word we keep saying here is beautiful!  Everywhere we turn there are lush colors and nature at her beautiful best.  From 7000 year old trees to dozens of waterfalls the people of Yakushima take great pride in their lovely home...

The trip here from Okinawa was not the easiest run we have ever made.  After 2 1/2 days of rough seas and uncooperative wind we arrived here exhausted.  We made our way around the inner breakwall and side tied to the rough wall with the fenderboard out we feel quite comfortable.

We went to bed just after supper at 5:30 pm and didn't wake up until the next morning...  really tired I guess...  This morning we decided that since we only had one day here we would make the most of it and rent a small car and explore the island...

What a good idea that turned out to be... We had 6 hours to drive 40 kilometers...  No problems we thought.  We arrived back just before the deadline.  The roads on the other side of the island narrow down to less than a lane width in some places and if there is on coming traffic, someone usually has to back up a little.

Here are a few pictures of our awesome day....

 

 

Yes, That is the centerline of the road, and no, they are not moving out of the way....

 We stopped for lunch when we saw the ONLY English sign...  A lovely small restaurant with great local food...  We have never had a Mackerel pizza before!

The only difficulty here is at low tide when we have to scale the wall to get on or off the boat...  We borrowed a ladder but got yelled at.  Since we didn't understand the man, we just smiled, bowed, and put it back where we found it... (we would have done that anyway, we were just waiting for the tide to rise).  Oh well, not everyone can be happy...

Not quite low tide....

High Tide....

We will leave on the high tide in the morning and get as far up the mainland as we can overnight.  We need to find a port by Thursday afternoon, as there is a nasty low scheduled to pass over on Friday/Saturday.

We will add more when we get to Osaka...