Cruise from Yakushima

Yakushima is an island located south of Kyūshū, in the prefecture of Kagoshima, Japan. It covers an area of about 500 square kilometers and is home to a population of about 15,000 inhabitants. The island of Yakushima is separated from the island of Tanegashima by the strait called Yakushima Kaikyō. The highest point on Yakushima is Miyanoura-dake, which rises 1,935 meters above sea level. The island is covered by a dense forest, famous for cryptomeria plants (called sugi in Japan) and rhododendrons. What remains of this ancient forest was included in the UNESCO World Heritage List in 1993. As early as 1993, it had been declared a biosphere reserve. A popular saying claims that it rains here for 35 days a month: in fact, statistics say that this is one of the places with the most frequent and intense rainfall in the world, with phenomena that amount to between 4 and 10 meters per year. The rainy season is concentrated in spring and summer, often accompanied by landslides and landslides, while in the rest of the year there may also be some relatively dry periods. Yakushima is the southernmost place in Japan where snowfall occurs, which especially in the mountainous area can accumulate for months before melting, while the ocean temperature never drops below 19 degrees. The forest on the island is visited by a large number of tourists, about 300,000 per year. It is said to have inspired the setting of the animated film Princess Mononoke, by Hayao Miyazaki. The forest also appears in the 1996 film Mothra. Yakushima has been a center for research on hydrogen fuel cell vehicles for Honda. 50% of the electricity produced on the island comes from hydroelectric sources and a small part of it has been used to produce hydrogen during an experiment conducted by the University of Kagoshima.