09-Sep-2007 -- This was the first visit to this confluence. We thought of turning up in Yamamoto or Watari two small Towns on the coast and asking around at their harbors for someone who would be willing to bring us to the confluence. But upon arrival at Sendai we stumbled over the local tourist information center and thought that we might as well give them a chance. This proved to be an excellent idea. Half of the very helpful staff spent almost an hour on the phone to find some fishermen who would bring us (three foreigners mind You) out for a reasonable price. We had not thought that it would be that tough, Japan is a seafaring nation after all!

We were so anxious to keep our appointment with our boat that we in showed up one hour early. While waiting we explained our endeavor to one of the fishermen mending their nets on the parking lot by the harbor. One of them brought us to the administration office nearby where some official explained us at length that for several reasons it would be impossible to go to confluence. This made us a little nervous. But once our ship showed up, our apprehensions were forgotten. The ship was between 15-17 meters long and almost to big for our purposes, and the captain and friendly crew had started the engines even before we had figured out how to put on the live jackets.

The GPS showed a distance of approximately 9 kilometers to the confluence. The captain brought us out a few kilometers and went for some shipwrecks near another Yamamoto south of Watari because he surmised we just wanted to make an ordinary day trip. We asked him to stop the engine and took five minutes to explain our desire to visit the confluence. After that it was almost to easy. The ships navigation equipment operated with GPS and automatically corrected the course for wind and drift as we went along. It brought us exactly to the spot. I loved to see all zeros at the minute and second digits of the display. But we had drifted a few dozen meters before I was able to take a picture of the GPS.

The weather was clear and from the confluence we were able to see the whole stretch of the bay. On the way back some of our party succumbed to seasickness, but even that did not stop the gleeful smile that a successful confluence visit fixed on their faces. Once back to the shore the captain invited us for lunch at an Italian place in Watari and brought us back to the train station afterwards.