Three Cubed

Three Cubed
Originally uploaded by Dinkins - Made in Japan.

Three cubed, that's me.

I took the day off with a 24-hour liberty I earned for being a good sailor. I was so impressed by Kitayamazaki Point (see Monday's post) that I decided to go back. So I went by myself on the 140 minute drive and listened to A Tale of Two Cites on my iPod. What a good novel!

Anyway, there is a 3.7 km trail along the ridge of the cliffs that drop into the Pacific Ocean. I wanted to experience it so off I went. I ended up only making it 1.2 km because I kept going off the trail being that it was wooded and didn't afford any views of the shoreline.

At one excursion off the beaten path, I happened upon a rope that was used to steady yourself as you descended through a steep, wooded area to the shoreline. Based on the condition of the rope and the untrodden vegetation upon the path of the rope, I assume few people have been down this area. I felt like a privileged explorer, and the painstaking descent proved to be well worth it. When I came to the shoreline, I found myself in an area about 100 yards across with arches that jutted in to the ocean on both sides. The shoreline was composed solely of boulders, small and large, that you could still tell were rubble from the cliffs above. I felt as if God was saying "Happy Birthday! Look what I have created and shown you."

I was elated. I ate my lunch, climbed around, washed off in the cold, dark blue ocean water, and then headed back up. I spotted a dried up creek bed and decided to take it back up instead of using the rope. Well that was a mistake. It proved to be too treacherous and so I had to carefully shimmy over to the wooded area and used the roots of small trees to climb back to the top. It was quite an exhausting and frightening trek that yielded lots of scrapes and the dreaded poison ivy. Yes, I am typing here in the discomfort of itchiness, but it was worth it because I will remember my adventure long after the rashes are gone.

I was back by 4 p.m. and had a tasty yakinuku dinner with my new family and a beautifully decorated, yummy cake prepared by my lovely wife.