The Seto Inland Sea
A sea with hundreds of islands in it, held between three of Japan's four main islands — calm water, mild weather, and a horizon full of shapes.
AT A GLANCE
- Extent
- About 450 km east to west, enclosed on three sides
- Islands
- Over 700, from bare rock to towns of thousands
- Climate
- The mildest and driest in Japan — sheltered from both coasts
- Best season
- Spring and autumn, for haze that separates the islands into layers
The Inland Sea is what you get when three large islands almost, but not quite, close around a body of water. It is sheltered from the Pacific and from the Sea of Japan, so it has the calmest weather in the country — and it is full of islands, hundreds of them, laid out in overlapping ranks in every direction.
For a balloon this is both the easiest water in Japan to be over and the only water in Japan you would ever choose to be over.
Why haze helps
On a clear day the islands are simply islands. On a hazy one — which is most spring mornings here — each rank of them is a slightly paler grey than the one in front, and the sea reads as a series of flat layers going back to the horizon. It is the classic Setouchi view and it is entirely a trick of the air.
Out over open water the wind bends back toward the nearest shore, and here the nearest shore is rarely far. That is a genuine safety margin — but it is a wind, not a rescue. Come down in the water and the journey ends there.
The crossings
Three sets of bridges cross the Inland Sea, and each is a landmark you can see from a long way off — long spans stepping from island to island, with the traffic on them the only thing moving at speed in the whole view.
Between them, ferry wakes draw slow white lines from island to island. From a balloon at a thousand metres, on a mild afternoon with the haze doing its work, it is the least hurried landscape in Japan.
Screenshots are from a build in progress and are not necessarily taken at the place described.
Terrain is built from elevation data published by the Geospatial Information Authority of Japan (GSI).