We saw Mt Fuji in the last of the setting sun on the way back from last night's restaurant. It's one of the most famous sights in all of Japan and almost of reverential status in the minds of the Japanese; so Evan was lucky.
The following day, Wednesday, I decided to get sunburnt! Obviously without S.W.M.B.O. to assist me, I can't be trusted to live on my own and failed to apply sunblock to parts of my ageing body. We enjoyed a stop at a beach area nonetheless; we anchored far enough away to allow us to pee off the side of the boat without causing offense! After five days afloat, Michael felt he might have to be retrained to use a toilet as he had become almost feral in that area!
We set the sails for the marina and after the usual shouting and swearing - a regular feature of putting up the canvas - we began our homeward bound leg.
Now this takes us across the shipping lanes of huge ocean going tankers plying their trade to Tokyo. These ships are often over 100,00 tons and can move very quickly. Shouting: "Power gives way to sail, old man!" Does not have a lot of effect when they're almost on top of you.
Similarly a Japanese Navy submarine driving full blast down the seaway is not interested in diverting her course. So you better watch out. Halfway across this game of chicken, a Japanese Navy destroyer was obviously set to ram us so we decided to lay off our direction.
He changed direction too, and set us up for some target practise. We shouted and waved our arms: "Excuse me, Sir, you appear to be heading our way!" Or something like that. We laid off again and this time he did not readjust his bearing so we slipped behind him. Just so we didn't forget him we hit his aft wake, which was an interesting experience for those of us lolling on the netting in the bow reading a book. Total soaking, Ha, ha!
We arrived back at the marina and filled Milestone up with 150 litres of diesel ready for her next adventure. We had done about 150 nautical miles and managed to avoid too many risks at sea. Now it's air conditioning, hot showers and city life once more in Yokohama
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