Surfing in Habushi-ura, Japan
Ko Sasaki for The New York Times
The NYT recently published a compelling profile by James Nestor on surfing in Niijima, a small island 100 miles southeast of Tokyo. Here’s an excerpt:
Niijima, one of nine inhabited islands in Japan’s Izu archipelago, has been a place of many faces. Around the 18th century, during Japan’s Edo period, it served as an island prison for mainland exiles. By the 1960s, the Japanese defense department moved in and shot rockets and missiles from its coasts. For the last few decades, it has been a weekend escape hatch for harried city residents and college students looking for sun-drenched island life a 40-minute flight from Tokyo.
More recently, Niijima has become one of Japan’s top surfing destinations. In the summer months, Habushi-ura, a stunning stretch of Windex-blue water along the island’s east coast, has some of the best surf in all of Japan and is host to a number of international surfing competitions. A handful of young Tokyo surfers have since made Niijima their year-round home and created a burgeoning surf scene.
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