Chigasaki

Last week we talked about the Taiyōzoku, the Sun Tribe, and Ishihara Shintaro's novel that gave a name to a generation on this coast.

We talked about the arrival of surfing through American servicemen at Atsugi in 1961, the specific beach culture that grew from it at Chigasaki, and the music of Southern All-Stars, Tube, and Shonan no Kaze that turned those summer days into something permanent.

Today, we go to the water itself, to the island that sits just off the Shonan shore and has been receiving visitors, pilgrims, generals, lovers and tourists for over a thousand years.

Enoshima Enoshima is a small island in Sagami Bay, 6.3 meters in circumference, connected to the mainland at Fujisawa City by a 600-meter bridge.

The implication is that hope has been here before you, moving in a specific direction, and that the track it leaves is something you can follow.

Shonan has left that track.

It runs along the coast from Kamakura to Ōiso past Enoshima and Chigasaki, and the cape where the general threw his sword, past the beaches where the first surfboards arrived, and the street where the bands began.

Follow it as far as the coast goes.