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Fuji-Hakone-Izu NP, Shizuoka
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Kumomi’s July sazae hunt turns the shallows into a community seafood scramble: organizers scatter about 300 kg—roughly 4,000 shellfish—from a fishing boat for people to gather, free.
At nearby Kumomi harbor, a live right whale stranded on April 15, 1977. Residents tried to return it to the sea, but it died 4 days later; its roughly 15-m skeleton was preserved for the community’s whale museum.
The red seaweed tengusa, harvested off Kumomi, becomes tokoroten jelly and agar. A local fishing cooperative leader brought plants from eastern Izu in 1929, helping turn this once-isolated village into a major seaweed producer.
A 1589 record says Kumomi’s local lord sent a whale to the Hōjō clan. At a 2009 beach festival recalling that tribute, the ceremonial “whale” was an 80-cm swordfish—then cut up and shared with the crowd.
The steep headland beside Kumomi Beach, Eboshiyama, is not a volcano cone: it exposes the hardened magma conduit—the “root”—of an ancient submarine volcano, lifted above the sea by crustal movement.
The shrine above the beach honors Iwanagahime, elder sister of the deity worshipped at Mount Fuji. Local legend says praising Fuji from her mountain could anger her and get people thrown into the sea—a tale that kept villagers from discussing Fuji there.
On January 2, Kumomi’s fishermen hold a “first-sailing” New Year rite, praying for safe voyages and good catches. From a raised scaffold they scatter rice cakes, mandarins, and sweets—a blessing that doubles as a beachside scramble.
At the mouth of the Ōta River, fishers built a concrete wash basin about the size of 8 tatami mats to rinse tengusa; they could carry the seaweed straight to the sand to dry. Kumomi’s beach has also been a working food-production floor.
