A Day by the Sea | Ine
When I opened the car window, I could smell the sea. There were few lights along the road, and the water was still hidden in the deep darkness. It was a little after 4:00 a.m. when I parked at the lookout. The sky, slowly growing brighter, was reflected in the car window. Summer dawn comes early.
Soft color appeared beyond the leaves, and the outlines of the mountains slowly came into view. In the bay below, I could now see the sea and the houses along the shore. A small fishing boat crossed the quiet water, leaving a trail behind as it headed out of the bay.
Ine. A new day had begun.
At dawn, the only people in the parking lot were me and a small group of campers who had spent the night in their car. I left the lookout and decided to walk through the town with my camera while the morning light was still soft. It was early August, in the middle of a long period of extreme heat. Once the sun rose higher, it might become too hot to walk for long.
A narrow path ran between the houses. At the end of it, the sea felt close enough to touch. A bicycle stood beside the path. A bus turned through the rows of wooden houses, its engine mixing with the sound of boats from the water.
A wooden boat rested beneath a roof. Nearby were a waiting area for the water taxi and a motorbike passing through the street. Looking at the “funaya” through my viewfinder, I felt as if the past and the present were meeting in the same place. Funaya are traditional boathouses built directly along the water.
Before long, a large tour bus arrived at the parking lot, and people began to gather near the pier. The same town I had walked through in the quiet morning was now waking up as a tourist destination. I boarded a small water taxi with about ten other passengers and travelled around the bay while listening to the young boatman’s lively stories about the town.
As we moved away from the shore, the streets I had just walked disappeared behind the houses. From the water, I could see the other side of the funaya—the side facing the sea. Yellow floats tied to the boat moved through the water as we left a trail of white foam behind us.
Two wooden boats rested inside one of the funaya. The water near the shore was a bright green, becoming a deeper blue farther out. It was clear enough to see small fish below the surface. Birds flew low over the water.
When we returned to the pier, many travellers were getting off tour buses in the large parking lot. The streets were now filled with visitors. Against the wide blue sea, two red postal motorbikes passed in front of me. I caught the contrast through my viewfinder. The temperature had reached 38°C. The sunlight was so strong that even the blue sky looked pale.
I left the town and drove along the steep coastline. From high above, I saw a fishing port beyond the rows of rooftops. I decided to return when the sun was lower.
After resting my tired, sleep-deprived body for a while, I returned to the port in the evening.
It had a different kind of quiet from the bay in the morning and the funaya at midday. My eyes were drawn to the details of the fishing boats and the small boats resting on land. Beyond the breakwater, the sky was slowly changing color. In front of me, waves reached the shore in a steady rhythm.
Listening to the endless sound of the waves, I felt as if time had stopped. I moved closer to the small fishing boats. A larger ship floated in the distance. There were birds and cats. Worn nets and fishing tools lay nearby. Even when no one was there, I could still feel the signs of daily life. It is hard to resist the pull of a harbor.
TSUTSU / URAURA. In Japanese, tsu means a port, while ura refers to a shore or waterside place.
Surrounded by the sea, Japan has many places like these. Over time, the word tsutsuuraura came to mean “everywhere” or “all across the country.” The sea and other waters are closely connected to life in Japan. I want to keep walking through its towns and shores, and to keep discovering what they hold.
