After eight days on Miyakojima in which again our departure was delayed by bad weather, we finally set sail for Ishigaki Island, part of the Yaeyama Island chain and the end of our sailing trip through Japan.

Our nascent sailor and crew member — a young Japanese guy riding his bicycle around Japan who hopped a ride with us from Miyakojima to Ishigaki — spent the entire 20 hours below deck seasick. His first experience on a yacht took him through rain, squalls and 30 knot wind gusts — not exactly ideal conditions. Yet extreme conditions had been the norm for most of our sail through Japan's southern islands: typhoons, near gale-force winds and rough seas. Ocean sailing is not for the faint-hearted.

In addition, out of all the islands we had stopped at (Yakushima, Amami Oshima, Okinawa, Miyakojima, and Ishigaki), only Okinawa's Ginowan Marina offered facilities for visiting yachts such as a restaurant, showers, toilets, garbage disposal, and fresh water to fill the boat's water tanks. Shore power to keep our refrigerator running and electricity usage going for our computers and cellphones, was never an option. All the other ports and "marinas" we stopped at were just moorings on concrete walls with the closest facility being a local park with public restrooms. With six crew members living onboard and no renewable water supply, it meant going three to four days at a time without bathing. Travel doesn't get any more off the beaten track in Japan than this. Only with an adventurous spirit should one attempt to tackle this country by sea.