While the other six people on board were sleeping down in the cabins, I was sleeping outside on the deck under the canopy in the cockpit of the boat. This is my favorite place to sleep because I can see the stars and the moon while being lulled to sleep by the gentle rocking of the boat in the ripples. Now this is "being one with nature!"
The sailboat was tied up to a pier for the night. We had chosen a random island in the Inland Sea to drop anchor. Despite that there are over 250 inhabited islands in Japan's Seto Inland Sea, the number of remote islands is becoming fewer as Japan continues to connect entire island chains with bridges.
Where previously you would have had to take a ferry to each island, now you merely need to take an exit off the highway, go over the bridge to the first island, and island hop via bridges from there. Islands that used to be just small dots in the Inland Sea have now had their dots connected.
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