We drove for about 5 minutes to Sagara, an industrial seaport.  I had been there before, but I had never surfed there before.  I was put off by the rather large, rather official-looking sign in Japanese with “No Surfing” “No Jet skiing” “Danger” and some other things that I couldn’t read.  (The sign is quite faded and has some difficult kanjis).

When we arrived, there was a solitary longboarder in the water.  However, it didn’t look as menacing as Kashima.  The wind was still strong and it was still raining quite heavy.  We quickly got in the water and enjoying ourselves.

I am quite lucky about weather.  The rain stopped and sun tried to make an appearance.  Here are a few pictures that I took at around 10 am.  I wanted to take a picture of the sign but it was blocked by a couple of vans.

When I visited this point before, it was completely flat – barely a ripple.  Apparently, this point only has waves when there is a typhoon swell.  Of course, the locals know this well and when we were leaving, there were about 30 or so surfers and a bodyboarder in the water.

A nice morning at the beach!

An hour later, I was in the parking lot at my unofficial new local point, Kashima.  Here’s what I saw:

You can’t really tell from the pictures, but the waves were quite big.  I guess that it was overhead or maybe even bigger.  Not too many people were in the water, but I thought I would go out for a paddle and try to catch a wave or two.  My friend hadn’t shown up yet, but I was going out anyways.

I had my wetsuit half-way on when my friend arrived.  He suggested that we try a different point just down the road…

As you can probably guess, there were surfable waves.

Here’s a close up of someone in action.  Strangely enough, after I took this picture, he got out of the water and headed to his car – maybe it was the end of his session.

Most of the surfers here are riding longboards, so it will be interesting to see how I make out with my board.

Another interesting point about this beach, is the length of it.  It is quite impressive.  It is offseason now, so people with 4-wheel drive cars park on the beach.  Once the “official season” is here, that will end and so will free parking.

The only downside I can see to this beach is the lack of coin showers.  There is at least one free shower, but it certainly isn’t warm!

It is a sandy beach with some patches of grass.  I don’t know if people swim here.  It’s a little cold yet for that!

It’s a pretty mellow beach – a few old guys were fishing and a few families with small children were enjoying picnic lunches.  There was even a guy practicing his bunker shot!

I’d like to get a cheap kite and give it a try here.

Here is a picture of my half of the office. On clear days, I can see Mt. Fuji through the window. During the month of April, I think there has been only one or two days that I could see it – and on those days I didn’t have the camera with me! Winter is the best season to see Mt. Fuji.

This is the left side of my half of the office. The cabinets are used to form a wall. As you can see, there is plenty of space for my books.

Next time, I will post more pictures of the campus and classrooms.

Every day, three wild boar races are held at this track.

With encouragement from the handlers, they’re off!

The final stretch with #6 in the lead, followed by #3…

Holding a winning ticket. The admission receipt doubled as a ticket for the race! (The receipt also has a 3rd function – it has instructions for folding it into an origami wild boar).

Mother and baby… or is it father and baby?!?

Hanging around – waiting for something interesting to happen. That concrete block looks like a lot of fun for the young ‘uns!

Just another typical tourist picture!

We left at around 3 am, but decided to take the route along the ocean instead of driving through the mountains. It is an extra 20 kilometers but it certainly is an easier drive – especially in the early hours of the morning.

The forecast called for a 30% chance of rain, but it turned out to be mostly cloudy. I actually got a bit of a sunburn on my head and face. I will wear my surf hat next time.

How were the waves? At 6 am, the waves were pretty good, but as the tide went out, the waves went with them. Here’s a picture of me playing in the soup at the end of the session…

That’s right.  I went to Tatadohama.  Went by local roads – left at around 3:30 am and was in the water just after 6 am.

How was the surf?

If you look closely, you can see a big grin on my face!

Was the water cold?  You betcha! I estimate that about half of the people out there this morning were wearing boots.  I stayed in the water for around 2 hours and that was enough for me – for some reason, I seem to lose a lot of body heat through the top of my head.

Was the beach crowded?  At 6 am, there were 10 or so surfers in the water.  This is what it looked like just before 9 am.  (Just for the record, Kazumi took the two pictures of me, and the picture below was stolen from this website.