200 Miles to Chiba

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.

Visibility is frequently uninspiring — by which I mean less than three nautical miles, before the outlines of the hills vanish into the haze. The air sits heavy and lethargic. I sail half-lost, reliant on technology to locate myself, but lacking the situational awareness and optimism that comes with clear sight. The heat is draining. The distances achieved are rather pathetic, but when added together, they still count as progress.

At the end of each day, Yumiko and I measure the distance remaining to Onjuku, where I began the journey. Yesterday was cause for celebration as we broke the 200-nautical-mile barrier, after averaging 12 nm a day for six gruelling days. These measurements are "as-the-crow-flies" distances and therefore underestimates.

As if supporting the effort, the Pacific Ocean has been rather gentle. I’m thankful for that. I’m also thankful to have Yumiko following me and seeing to it that I eat well and often. Without her, I might have thrown in the towel. I suspect illness and heat exhaustion would have broken me by now. The time limit imposed by Japanese immigration would seem unrealistic without her help. On that point — it’s not done till it’s done — but we are on schedule.

The sail that has been with me since Hokkaido — a Loftsails Switchblade 7.8, Heavy Duty version — has covered a huge distance but is now at the end of its life. UV degradation has made the films brittle and weak. New splits appear almost daily and though I tape them up, I doubt the sail will make it to the end. Still, we’ll see. Yumiko has a spare sail in the car, so if and when a change becomes truly necessary, we have that covered.

This is another section of impressive coastline. The ports are all tucked away inside deep inlets, which adds miles at the beginning and end of each run. On a different kind of mission, it would be fun to explore more - making stops on wild, boulder-strewn "beaches", with vertical, impenetrable forest-jungle rising behind. But that isn’t my mission this time, and attempting such stops risks real shipwreck. Outside of the ports, there isn't much easy stopping in Japan.

The ports have tsunami walls, which hopefully protect residential areas from the feared mega-tsunami that will happen sooner or later. Fishing boats rev their engines from around 4 AM, and for a few hours it sounds like Santa Pod Raceway. Three times a day, each town's tsunami warning system broadcasts at full volume some melody specific to that community. From the forested hillsides, the background buzz of cicadas pulses through the midday heat. And soon after 5 PM, all is quiet.

I should be sailing! Time to go again...

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Having written the above, I'll post it. Today I got 6 miles. It took a long time to get from the windless port to the open sea, where it was rough and quite windy, with waves of about 1.5 metres. Headwinds, of course. Later I got to a bend in the coast where the wind eased and the waves moderated too. Visibility was good, and I could see much flatter terrain ahead. My guess is that today was the end of a difficult section, and the start of another with a different set of challenges.

I started the day rather jaded, then was nervous before sailing, but finished on a high.