Someone wrote to me and, rather emphatically, told me to give them the ferry schedule for Matsuyama (population 420,000), Ehime Prefecture on Shikoku to Shiraishi Island (population 659) where I am. I was sorry to have to tell him that swimming would be faster.
You see, there is no ferry service from Matsuyama to Shiraishi Island. If there was, that guy would be the only one on board. People in Matsuyama have never heard of Shiraishi Island and although the people on Shiraishi have certainly heard about Matsuyama, most have never been there, probably because there is no ferry service to get there.
The ferry systems throughout the Seto Inland Sea are confusing. In addition, there is little information in English on how to get to the smaller islands. To understand it properly, imagine a big "string art" board, with lots of colorful strings crisscrossing back and forth and connecting different pins. These strings represent the ferry routes and the board represents the Inland Sea. Many ferries service the 150 or so islands in the Inland Sea. Now, imagine yourself jumping straight into the Inland Sea of the string art exhibit. You're bound to get tangled up in all those strings, possibly even drown.