How is the view of the sunset today? There are days when the blazing red sun can be seen falling over the horizon and days when the sky is painted all shades of red as the sun sets behind a fog of clouds. No sunset is the same. How many sunsets have you managed to catch? Or better yet, how many have you missed the opportunity to see in your past?

The sky is not the only thing that is painted in the colors of the setting sun. What about the surface of the ocean?

The ocean divide between the islands you see before you is the former caldera, and in the distance, you can see Mt. Takuhi. The eruption that caused the three islands to split, creating the ocean caldera, was thought to have occurred in the vicinity of Mt. Takuhi. Does this knowledge affect how you look at the scenery around you?

Let’s take a second to imagine what is happening in the depths of the ocean before us.
For example, there are many Sazae Turban Shells, a sea snail native to Japan and South Korea. The Sazae Turban Shells are a bit unique, since, compared to normal Sazae, the thorns on their shells are thinner, longer, and pointier. There is a reason behind this, of course. While the inland sea looks rather calm, the currents from the open sea are intense and in the winters the waves are more aggressive than you can even imagine. The long thorns of the Oki Island Sazae are a result of evolution and serve to prevent them from getting pushed around by the currents. Their shells are also tightly wrapped around their bodies, and since there isn’t much sand in the surrounding areas, they don’t have as much of a gritty, sand texture to them when you open them up.

There are also the Iwagaki Oysters that Oki is known for. People say that there are no “bad batches'' of Oki’s Iwagaki oysters. Normally, oysters end up absorbing some of the plankton that floats in open saltwater. Plankton tends to absorb the different bacterias floating in the water, so when the oysters hold the plankton in their shells, that bacteria can also affect the oysters themselves. This is what leads to food poisoning. However, the Oki Islands are a set of remote islands, isolated from the pollution of the city. Thanks to this, the waters have remained clear and beautiful and there is barely any plankton in the nearby seas. Since there is no plankton for the oysters to consume, it’s difficult to raise the oysters. Even though they cannot raise many, they put a lot of time and effort into raising Iwagaki oysters here in the Oki Islands.
If you get a chance to try the Sazae Turban Shell Snail or the Iwagaki Oysters, we hope you can recall these stories and remember that all the ingredients you are consuming are connected to the earth.

Lastly, we want you to take a moment to lay on the ground here and rest your head on the earth. As you do so, we want you to focus on the feeling of the back of your head connecting with the ground, and take a moment to think. Just as the Sazae and Iwagaki have evolved and adapted to their environments, so, too, do humans need to evolve and adapt to their surroundings as well. How have you grown and evolved in the environment where you were raised?