女木島

The ferry from Sanport takes about twenty minutes, long enough to watch Takamatsu's skyline soften into the haze of the Inland Sea. Megijima rises ahead, a narrow island ridged by two summits, its slopes terraced where the land allows. Stone walls called Ōte stand along the village edges, built tall and tight against the winter wind — a vernacular architecture worked out over generations of half-farming, half-fishing life.

Inland, a path climbs toward Washigamine and the entrance to Onigashima Daidōkutsu, the long man-made cavern bound up with the Momotarō legend that gave the island its other name. Further up, the lookout opens to the archipelago in every direction, islands fading into islands. Near the harbor, Oni-no-Yakata serves as office, museum, and canteen at once; bicycles wait outside, since the slope and the scale of the place make cycling the practical way to move.

What distinguishes Megijima from the better-known art islands of the Seto Inland Sea is the quietness of its working surfaces — the terraced fields, the granite outcrops, the cedar groves above the swimming cove. Population has thinned over decades, and the rhythm shows it: a few boats, a few gardens, the cavern's tour groups arriving and leaving on the ferry timetable. Within Setonaikai National Park, this is one island among many, and it does not try to be more than what it already is.