Around The World In 80 Waves

Enoshima is the town named after the island shrine you see here, which has been linked to the mainland by a narrow causeway. It is a short drive westward from Kamakura after my morning hike around the Zen temples and chatting with Buddha.

It should be possible to see Mount Fuji from the water here, but it is completely overcast today. So much so that even seeing the other end of the beach is a bit of a challenge!

I parked up in another underground car park, emerging on the sea front next to this emergency tsunami platform.

I think it is somewhere for people to climb up above the level of the incoming surge, but given it is only 7 metres high I wouldn’t rate your chances of surviving here very highly.

Not that I had much to worry about on that score though, because as well as yesterday’s howling wind, the waves have also dropped here. They are about two foot high but very clean, with maybe an extra foot on the sets, and coming in consistently.

There is a staggering amount of people in the water, especially so because it is mid week during office hours. I don’t think I have ever seen so many people in the water at one beach. It was certainly in the realm of hundreds, and I thought Snapper Rocks was busy!

I had decided to risk wearing just shorts and a thin neoprene shirt because the water had seemed warm on previous session nearby and there wasn’t much wind to bite through what I was wearing.

Speaking of bites, it didn’t take long before I was getting dive bombed by eagles again. You can see a couple in the sky behind me.

Despite all the people in the water there was hardly a word being said between the surfers, which was a bit odd, but my cheesy grin seemed to always get a good response. One pretty girl wanted to know about the GoPro but the conversation didn’t last long beyond Konnichiwa because of my lack of Japanese.

It was my last surf whilst in Japan and I made sure I caught plenty of waves because I am unlikely to get any surfing done through much of the next few weeks. This was probably the best ride of the session.