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From Shodo the islands begin. They stretch westward, hundreds of them, almost as far as the large southern island of Kyushu. The sea is like a lake. The wind ruffles the surface; the water looks shallow. The islands ride upon its lightly broken surface. The boats move back and forth, lines of choppy waves diverging, the wakes like furrows after a plow. It is late afternoon. The port islands catch the sun. Each detail--a rock, a tree, a stretch of sand--stands out, clear, sharp-edged. The starboard islands, the sun behind, are outlines. The nearest is almost black, those farther away a dark gray, the ones behind them purplish, until--islands piled like low thunderheads--the farthest pale into a watered blue, deepest toward the crest, almost white where their far shores meet the horizon.
