In 1965, a Dutch anthropologist named Cornelius Ouwehand sailed with his Japanese wife, Shizuko, to the remote island of Hateruma to undertake research. The series of monochrome images they took of daily life, work and ritual there were eventually published under the simple title "Hateruma."

Back then, it would have taken the couple several hours in their small craft to reach Hateruma from Ishigaki port on Ishigaki Island, the second-largest (after Iriomote) but most populous (45,000) of the Yaeyama Islands group in Okinawa Prefecture.

Today's crossing, in a battered-looking but decidedly faster ferry, takes slightly under an hour, though it can still be a rough crossing. Indeed, when this intrepid writer made the trip, the sea was initially as calm as a millpond, but it grew choppy beyond the harbor, and waves were soon slamming the small boat with sickening thuds as spray obscured any view of the presumably blue seas.