When you hike the lovely Cape Suwazaki in Yawatahama, you’re likely to see a white metal structure in the sea across the bay. It looks like an unfinished suspension bridge to nowhere. If you consult your tourist map, you’ll see that it’s the Sea Road, which doesn’t actually make things any clearer. In fact, it’s a dedicated fishing pier with its own fish farm and seafood restaurant.
To access Sea Road, follow the signs from the centre of town, or just head to the right as you approach the sea. An increasingly narrow wharf leads out along the peninsula, and there’s a car park built out over the sea. The entrance to Sea Road looks a bit forbidding, but not to worry—the staff inside are friendly. So is the portly black and white cat who goes by the name of Hana-chan.
If you’ve come here for some fishing rather than to eat, you can choose to fish in the enclosures of farmed fish, or in the open water. In the first case, it costs 500 yen for adults and 200 yen for children, which includes a fishing rod and bait. Then for each type of fish you catch, you pay a separate price: 1,300 yen for sea bream, 500 yen for largescale blackfish, and 300 yen for horse mackerel. The types of fish available may change with the season. When you have all the fish you want, you take your bucket to the counter back on land, pay, and have your fish boxed in ice if you wish, to take away.
If you have your own rod and bait, it costs 1,000 yen for adults and 500 yen for children to fish in the open sea from anywhere on the pier. Different fish are available at different times of year, but sea bream, regarded as a delicacy, is available year round. You don’t have to pay for anything you catch.
You’re also free to wander out across the bridge and onto the pier and around the enclosures just to have a look. There’s no charge for this. The views of Yawatahama bay are spectacular with its ferries and fishing boats coming and going and its islands. The same views can be had from the windows of the reasonably priced seafood restaurant Osakana-tei on the top floor.
Name in Japanese シーロード八幡浜 — shiirōd yawatahama — Searoad Yawatahama
