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WE did it! With the help of others I windsurfed round the four main islands of Japan. For the final hops the weather and sailing conditions were glorious. The planning - from beginning to end - was last minute but somehow everything fell into place: 14 months after departing from Onjuku beach, I landed there again to reunite with Paul, Shizu, Aika and Eurika. To mark the spot "WELCOME HOME JONO" had been drawn in the sand. Alongside that stood Yumiko - beaming - and her presence made the welcome party complete.

Much of this journey has been a fight against wind and tide. Just a week ago, it seemed that I was at least three weeks away from closing the loop of the circumnavigation. A double dose of typhoons could easily have prevented completion. In actuality, I got lucky with the weather. A string of days with settled weather and kind south-westerly winds set up a trio of crossings that now puts me one short hop away from Onjuku, where the journey began.

No movement for a few days as we let big seas calm down. Before that I had a very satisfying trio of days.

Groundhog Day section. Wind is a distant memory. Every day since forever is paddled in part or in full. Trickles of breeze come and go, and are almost always on the nose. I no longer stow the paddle, since it will soon be needed again.

A great run yesterday down to Kushimoto, the southernmost tip of Wakayama Prefecture. This comes after 2-days-previous when I only made 4 nm, before nearby thunderstorms and my own tiredness advised as early stop; and yesterday when I put the hours in, but the very light headwinds limited progress to about 9 nm.

Lots of paddling lately. The last bit of wind was before a rainy rest day at Kochi City. Kochi sits in the middle of a roughly 150 km wide semicircular bay. The east side of the bay runs out along a peninsular - Cape Muroto - that juts out into the Pacific Ocean and is triangular and pointed like a shark's tooth.

We are overdue a catch-up. Here goes...

As with my previous windsurf journeys, the Japan Journey website features a Contact Network where people can offer to support me when I reach them. Around Britain and Europe, there were many subscribers to the Contact Networks and I relied heavily on their support. The Japan Journey Contact Network - by way of contrast - has only attracted a few generous-hearted subscribers. The previous of these in a geographical sense was Rob, who is in Hokkaido!

The Kyushu mainland was shrouded in fog when I emerged from my tent this morning, but the islands and my peninsula - pushing out into the Bungo Strait - were enjoying a sunrise with broken cloud and good visibility. This enabled an early getaway and I was sailing by 6 AM. The mountains of Kyushu had now faded from the horizon but would soon reappear.

Yesterday, proper SUP paddling for 12 nm on a calm sea. The last miles were behind an island where I could relax. I took some video of the fish because it was drier underwater. The other pic is from a few days ago.

Today started foggy. It's an OK day now but remains windless. I could paddle, but prefer to wait because of the excellent facilities here: a konbini, with a covered outside area, wifi and charging points. It makes no sense to paddle a few miles and lose these conveniences, especially when there is supposed to be some wind tomorrow.

Sunday

Very light winds lately, and now rain too, which makes a day off a sensible option. That allows for recovery from air-rowing and paddling. Seeing the poor weather on the way I pushed hard yesterday, using a land breeze in the morning and then the faintest trickle of sea breezes through the afternoon. At best there was maybe 4 knots of wind. Thankfully, the sea was very calm. I passed 3 or 4 beaches and headlands that were well stocked with local surfers and paddleboarders.