2024-5-2 Walking around Issou, Yakushima

Ever since we moved here to Yakushima, I’ve written a post every month about our experiences and just generally, what we’ve been up to that month. Since I’m off work for a few days (it’s currently “Golden Week” in Japan), I decided to go somewhere unusual for me, and write the post there.

That unusual place was Issou Beach. We usually go to swim there during the summer months, when the water is much warmer (although I think my parents and brothers would consider the water now very warm), but it was good blog-writing weather today. After writing the post, I started exploring around the area. There are quite a few fishing spots in the area, but either the timing or the tides weren’t ideal, and the one or two people I met fishing there didn’t catch anything of note. Last New Year’s, my brother-in-law went fishing there and caught a kind of blue parrotfish that we ate together.

From there, I went to find a small shrine that you can see from the swimming area.

Can you see the shrine in the corner? The ship passing by is the Ferry Taiyo 2 — a ferry service that is run by the Town of Yakushima, connecting the largest port to a smaller island called Kuchinoerabu-jima. The name of this shrine is “Yahazudake Shrine”.

Although it was sunny outside, it was raining from the cave ceiling inside. Some shrines and most temples have a small area where you wash your hands before praying — this one was unique in that instead of having some kind of running water pump (usually that goes through a bamboo pipe), the water was taken directly from the dripping walls.

After leaving the shrine, my next destination was Issou Lighthouse.

There was an abandoned campsite at the entrance to the pathway. Now, Yakushima Island is comprised of a singular town, but the sign inside the campsite administration building read “Kami-Yaku Town” — the name of the town that managed the northern portion of the island until September 2007. Yakushima Town was established in October 2007 as a merger of “Kami-Yaku Town” in the north, and “Yaku Town” in the south. That means that this campsite has been abandoned for more than 17 years. Honestly, the building didn’t look that bad at all.

Then, I visited Nagata Inaka beach. Nagata Inaka beach is famous for its sea turtle egg-laying and hatching — although there is a downward trend these last few years in sea turtle sightings and the number of eggs, it is the beach with the most sea turtle landings and egg-laying in Japan.

It was a bit cloudy, but you can just make out the outline of Kuchinoerabu-jima in the distance.

After a short stop at the beach, I headed home. Overall, it was a very enjoying short afternoon trip. Yakushima island has so many different places to go to — from deep forests, tall mountains, beaches, ocean cliffs — it’s sometimes hard to decide where to go. Next time, maybe I’ll go to some different kind of area.