Once a year, a family of gods holds its reunion on a beach. On September 13, at the climax of the Kazusa Junisha Matsuri — begun, tradition says, in 807 — nine mikoshi from five shrines across the Boso peninsula converge on Tsurigasaki Beach at the southern end of the Kujukuri shore. Each shrine enshrines a member of one divine family: the goddess Tamayorihime, mother of Japan's legendary first emperor, is said to have come ashore at this very point, and her kin return annually to the landing place to greet her and one another. It is the oldest of Chiba's beach-descent rites, a prefectural intangible folk cultural property, and locally it is simply the Naked Festival.

The name comes from the shiofumi: some 2,500 men, near-bare, sprint the surf line with the mikoshi on their shoulders — sand, spray, and chant in one continuous roar — before the shrines are hoisted high on the beach in celebration of the year's reunion. The festival runs September 8-14 across the participating towns, but the 13th at Tsurigasaki is the day.

There is a fine modern rhyme here: Tsurigasaki is now one of Japan's premier surf breaks, chosen as the surfing venue for the Tokyo Olympics. The place where a goddess was drawn ashore and the place the good waves come turn out to be the same stretch of sand, thirteen centuries apart. Ichinomiya is about seventy minutes from Tokyo on the Wakashio express; the beach is a short taxi ride or cycle from the station.