A few postcards. A bit late, as tradition requires.

I arrived at twilight, paddling, in the rain, at Usuya port, and regretted the decision at the time. It was a long way in, there was no inviting place to sleep, and the town doesn't have a konbini. Oh well, when you leave it to fate you don't win 'em all.

Jono's diary - 2/3 Oct.

After a day off at Embetsu, a front rolled through on Wednesday morning with a deluge of rain, and the stiff southerly wind switched to an equally energetic north-westerly.

As usual, I am playing catchup with events. Unfortunately there are breakages to report, but I'll leave those for the end. Let's start with something more uplifting: an adventure within an adventure, the Shiretoko Peninsula.
 

I  moved on from Nemuro, on another misty day, with a repaired paddle. On this coastline that faces the Kuril islands (that are under Russian control)There was an easy day or maybe two. Then came a section with salmon nets, hundreds of salmon nets, that made it very difficult and ultimately impractical to make progress staying inshore. The nets are secured to land and hung from a taut cable-like line that runs about a mile out to sea.

Windsurfing round Cape Ochiishi on the Nemuro Peninsula, Hokkaido, Japan. On this leg I set sail from Kiritappu, about 20 nautical miles away. Although I stayed well offshore en route to Cape Ochiishi, twice the wind failed completely. I was tossed about like a cork, unable to make progress, and in a bit of bother to say the least. It was a big relief when this bit of wind arrived to get me past the Cape. The footage is a single take (a bit ugly and raw in places, but authentic!) The board is a Unifiber Proteus Raceboard and the sail is a Loftsails Switchblade HD 8.5m.

Having negotiated the port city of Kushiro, I stocked the barrel with a few extra supplies. At one o'clock the fog cleared and I sailed zigzags for 3 hours, making 2.7 nautical miles, before being becalmed again and having to paddle to reach the small port of Katsurakoi.

It is coming up to two full weeks since I arrived at Atsunai. I explained in a previous post that it was a struggle to reach the village. But that was nothing! Leaving is the real challenge...

Fortunately, although foggy, Atsunai is a pleasant hamlet. It has a railway station (unmanned) which connects it to bigger places such as Kushiro city, where I successfully extended my permission to be in Atsunai (also applies to the rest of Japan).

At the beginning of this journey I was concerned that the coastguard / port authorities / navy might hear about my plan and suggest or require that I put an end to it. As the weeks and miles accumulated this became less of a concern, and now I'm quite happy to be known about!

Perhaps it is time for a sticker on my sail to let people know what I am up to.

With stealth mode officially off, here are some (probably all!) recent "media appearances":

Since Hiroo, the target has been Kushiro, a port city at the end of this long south-west facing sweep of Hokkaido. So far I have made 3 base camps. The details of how the days unfolded, and my experience of them, will soon become hazy, tangled and imprecise. So as a "note to self" as much as anything, here are those details.

Before I sail today, a quick few paragraphs about Cape Erimo and the village (Erimomisaki) of the same name:

I am taking Hokkaido as a polygon to be tackled a face at a time. For a while, progress on the face leading to Cape Erimo seemed slow going, but then I conceptualised the task in mountaineering terms. Each day sailed (or sail-paddled) I nudged forward to a base camp nearer to the summit. A day with relatively favourable winds, but a most uncomfortable swell, contributed a 34 nm run. That got me in range (if not in sight, because visibility has been poor) of the pinnacle.