On Mar 28, 2024 we docked at Kagoshima, Japan, after a 230 mile overnight sailing in the East China Sea from Amami, Japan.

Kagoshima is a seaside city on Japan’s Kyushu Island and is the capital of Kagoshima Prefecture. It has a population of 600,000 people. It’s best known for Sakurajima, an active volcano that faces Kinko Bay. It constantly emits smoke, sometimes to a height of several thousand feet. Its last major eruption was in 1914, but it has periodically had explosive eruptions that occur at the crater center and scatter cinders up to 2.5 km. from the crater.

In the morning we ventured out on an excursion that initially took us to Sengen-En Garden. This garden is a fine specimen of Japanese landscape gardening with Sakurajima and Kinko Bay in the background.

Then we took a ferry across Kinko Bay to Sakurajima Island and drove to a volcano observation point. On the drive to the observation point we saw many volcanic rock formations on the side of the road, as well as cherry trees that were just starting their Spring bloom. It was a cloudy and lightly rainy day, but that just added to the mystique of the volcano.