Nanatsugama sea caves by boatPhoto: Pekachu / CC BY-SA 4.0
- Getting there
- From Marine Pal Yobuko, about 500 m on foot from the morning market; reach Yobuko by bus (25 min from Nishi-Karatsu) or taxi
Checked · Researched, not yet visited · times from official timetables and our estimates · Takumi Yamada
Basalt columns and sea caves on the open Genkai coast, the largest 3 m wide and 110 m deep; a Natural Monument. The Ika-maru boat sails hourly 09:30–16:30 from Yobuko, 40 minutes, adult ¥2,200, and noses into a cave when the sea allows. It sails every day April–November; December–March has closing days, and rough seas cancel it.
- 3 hr 30 min door to door needs a 5.5-hour call: a 2–3 hour stop cannot hold it. Pick something closer instead.
Nanatsugama sea caves by boat and your ship
Both pins on one map, so the distance is a fact rather than a feeling.
Routes that already include it
Finished days timed from official timetables and our estimates, with this stop in them.
What to put beside it
Each of these still lands you back aboard with the hour to spare.
See · ~2hKaratsu Castle
A white keep on a hill between Karatsu Bay and the mouth of the Matsuura River, built from 1602 by Terazawa Hirotaka; the present keep dates from 1966 and its museum was refitted in 2017.
See the detail
See · ~1.5hThe 14 Kunchi floats
The giant lacquered floats of the Karatsu Kunchi festival, lions and samurai helmets among them, all 14 under one roof; the oldest, the red lion, was made in 1819.
See the detail
See · ~1.5hKyu-Takatori residence
The seaside house of Takatori Koreyoshi, who made his money in coal, built in the late Meiji era and now an Important Cultural Property.
See the detail