弓削島

Ferries do the work that bridges do elsewhere. From the mainland there is no road across; you arrive by boat, and the timetable shapes the day more than any clock. Once on Yuge or Iwagi, the four central islands are linked by the Kamijima bridges, and a slip of water only a few hundred meters wide separates Ikina from Innoshima in Hiroshima, close enough that daily life crosses the prefectural line without ceremony.

The granite islands hold little flat ground, so the slopes are given over to citrus — the green lemons, limes, and hassaku for which Kamijima is known. At the Iwagi Bussan Center the boxes sit stacked near the harbor, and Yuge no Umi no Ekisha "Furatto" serves as a meeting point where islanders and the occasional visitor pass through the same doorway. Inland Sea Resort Fespa stands on a hill above Yuge, while the seawater bath at Shiou-yu draws its water directly from the surrounding sea — bathing here is not separate from the geography but made of it.

The town carries a layered history: the old Yuge-be artisans, the Edo-period split between Matsuyama and Imabari domains, the commute by boat to the Innoshima shipyards, the hard years after the oil shock. Shipbuilding still continues alongside aquaculture of sea bream and flounder, and on Iwagi the cherry trees of Mount Sekizen mark a slower calendar. What remains, after all of this, is a quiet archipelago where the scent of citrus and the sound of a ferry engine measure the hours.