I wanted to sail through the Seto Inland Sea as my great-grandfather had done 100 years ago on a U.S. Navy ship. He had kept a diary of his experiences, and I yearned to be a modern great-grandfather like him. I started near the Kii Channel, where he would have entered Osaka Bay, located at 33 degrees 45 minutes north, 134 degrees 50 minutes east. From there the crew and I headed west to Miyazaki on a 40-foot (12-meter) yacht called Louise. It would take a month to get to Miyazaki, just beyond where we would reach the end of the Inland Sea. We would have plenty of time to take in the culture and traditions of the Japanese islands and ports along the way.

Awajishima, the biggest island in the Seto Inland Sea, is a long island wedged between Honshu and Shikoku, separating Osaka Bay from the rest of the Inland Sea. The Akashi Kaikyo Bridge connects Awajishima to Honshu, and the Naruto Bridge connects it to Shikoku. This gap, the Naruto Strait, is the site of the famous Naruto whirlpools, which will spin you around and spit you out if you're a small vessel entering the gap at any time other than the highest or lowest tide. These are the slack times for the water that rushes through the gap into the Inland Sea from the Pacific Ocean on the rising tide and is drained back out during the falling tide. The middle of either an incoming or outgoing tide is when the water is rushing at its fastest, 20 kph. For this reason, boats can be seen gathered around Naruto Bridge on either side, waiting for the right time to enter the strait. We timed our tides and currents carefully, entering the strait on an incoming current just as the tide was changing from low to high, so we would be pushed along with the current through the gap and not get sucked into any whirlpools.

My first day at sea taught me a lot, mainly that I would have to get used to living on a sailboat heeling at 25 degrees. The whole boat leans over in the wind, so life on board is conducted at a slant. You eat at a slant, walk at a slant and use the toilet at a slant -- not always successfully.