March 27th - to Shinbo

Windless AM. Around midday I give up waiting and make some miles with the paddle. It soon gets rather choppy, so I am thankful for the faint trickle of breeze that also arrives. The chop continues to build, and rebound with interest from reflective shores. The most perfect mirrors are port walls. Around me, white horses tumble in defiance of Lord Beaufort's mandate. Despite the absence of wind, clearly it is blowing hard nearby.

The last 4 days. Progress coming not from gigantic leaps but from sustained effort. If I applied this to learning Japanese, I would be near fluent by now!

Moving again after two days waiting for very strong south-westerly headwinds to ease.

I sailed out of Itiogawa port and the wind promptly died to nothing. Rather than wait for wind in the confused chop, I switched to paddle mode to claw my way beyond the Himekawa River estuary: the boundary between turquoise river water and the deep blue seawater a sweeping curve. Later, a tailwind arrived and stayed with me until a sunset landing at Ecchu-Miyazaki port. That is Niigata-ken (prefecture) cleared, and the first landing in Toyama-ken. 

Apologies for the delay.

It's been a mixed bag of weather this week: rain, some snow flurries, and then yesterday glorious sunshine! The wind also switched to the south, which helped to flatten the sea because of the shelter afforded by the Noto Peninsula, about 40nm away.

The original Windsurf Round Japan sail (Loft Switchblade 8.5, sadly no longer with us) lives on in the form of a camber inducer turned into a camera mount, and I used it to grab some video. I sailed about 15 nm and retired for the day at Itoigawa with the wind strength already beyond sensible.

We are are useful chunk (70 nm, 130 km) further south than a a week ago! The Sea of Japan was calm for a few days, which allowed for stress free passage past some industrial zones and the city port of Niigata.