So much of Japan is a state-of-the-art high-tech urban showpiece - with transport by car, shinkansen (bullet train), plane, monorail, unmanned rail transport and so on - that you have to come to a place as remote as this before you realize that much of Japan still makes its living by the sea, on simple water craft like this. The fruits of the efforts are readily available; fresh seafood along the way or in the inn at night is one of the nicest things about this route.

This tiny ship resides in a place of honor in front of one of the buildings on the route (the fishing co-op, as I recall). It's actually not just a ship; believe it or not, you're looking at a library. Up until relatively recently, the only access to these islands was by ship, and many communities were too small to have libraries - so this ship went from island to island in Hiroshima Prefecture bearing books.