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Sanriku Fukkō NP, Iwate
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Some of the cliff caves are more than scenery: waves widened cracks into through-passages that local fishers use as shortcuts to their fishing grounds. The sappa tour follows these working sea routes.
At 5 a.m. on June 9, 2025, about 170 sappa boats launched as Tanohata’s sea-urchin season opened. Fishers peered through box scopes and lifted urchins with long hooked poles—a whole fleet at work.
One tight sea cave has the local nickname Shōjiki-ana, the “Honest-Person Hole”: people say only the honest can pass through. The joke is tucked into a real, wave-carved passage on the boat route.
After the March 11, 2011 tsunami swept away boats and Tsukuehama’s fishermen’s huts, the tour restarted on July 29 with 5 skiffs. Its first passengers—a father and 2 children—arrived by chance.
The cliffs beside the boat route are volcanic rocks formed about 120 million years ago. Yet the broad terrace above them was seabed until roughly 1 million years ago, before gradual uplift raised it.
The Sappa Boat Festival pairs boat rides with hands-on coastal traditions: visitors can try shucking sea urchin and sea squirt, and making salt. It’s held around holiday periods, with dates varying each year.
Tanohata Village says “sappa” is thought to come from sasappa, a bamboo-grass leaf. It’s the name for the little fishing skiffs used locally to catch sea urchin and abalone—working boats before they are adventure rides.
A hit TV drama helped give the little boats a big audience: the tour’s organizer linked 2013’s 5,000 riders to NHK’s Amachan, then reported 6,000 riders in 2014.
