来島

The ferry from Hashihama leaves nine times a day, and the crossing is over before you have settled into your seat. Kurushima sits just offshore, a small island with a low hill at its center, its perimeter walkable in the time it takes for the tide to shift in the strait that gives the island its name. The currents here are fast and braided; the water moves with a visible intent that the boats read carefully.

At Kurushima fishing port, the work is steady rather than performative — nets, ice, the small choreography of vessels returning. The island once anchored the Murakami navy, and traces of Kurushima Castle remain woven into a landscape that later turned to salt fields, shipping, the carrying of tiles and coal. None of this is announced. It sits in the contour of the slope, in the orientation of the houses toward the harbor, in the quiet that fills the gaps between engines.

What distinguishes this island from the wider sweep of the Seto Inland Sea is its scale: small enough that a season here would mean knowing each face at the pier, yet bound by frequent boats to Imabari's working waterfront. A weekend visit gives the strait and the silhouette of Hashihama; a longer stay lets the rhythm of the tides become legible. The island has been called a god's island, and one understands the phrasing less as legend than as a description of how the water behaves around it.