Kushimoto is a town looking at the sea. The small white and grey houses seat in a flat area with three different bays, between the coast and the high mountains just 500 meters inland. I would say that it has more boats than cars, but that's just a perception, and that the sea is what gives meaning to the town.
Oshima, the small island just across Kushimoto is where the Ertugrul, the ship we are excavating, sunk. The access to the island is done by car through a bridge constructed only 9 years ago (1999), until then the access was only done by boat. There are very few small villages in the island and all of them are fishing communities, the same communities that helped the Ertugrul survivors in 1891. Little has changed in the way of life here since then, if one eliminates electricity and all that comes with it, everything will be the same. Almost every house has its own little vegetable garden; when walking on the many small paths in the island one passes under bamboo forest and in the small openings between them it is surprising to find small cultivated areas with the typical greens and radishes and the local kumquats and tangerines famous in all Japan.
Many of the walking paths in the island leads the visitor through exotic plants and forest to breath taking views of the sea, a sea that seams treacherous even in calm days. In between a dark blue sea the rocks appear everywhere. It is quite a view and one can spend a long time looking at the waves braking on those picturesque pointed rocks... and then it is quite amazing to discover that in some of those rocks there are people, people fishing, and it is not unusual to find more and more and more.... because this type of fishing is a hobby in Kushimoto. I have been told that many retired people that chose living in this area go out to the rocks very often. There are small boats that leave the local harbours to take the fishermen to the rocks that they choose and then pick them up later in the day; others prefer to claim down the steep clifts of the island to reach the coastal rocks.
As it happens with the fishermen in the rocks it is necessary to carefully look at the landscape and the people of this area to slowly discover the little things that make their culture and made them unique.
www.ertugrul.jp : Japonya'da bir Osmanlı Gemisi |
