TONOSHO, Kagawa -- Cow-shaped Shodoshima island in the Seto Inland Sea appears to be a single landmass, but is actually two. The western portion, what would be the cow's face, is actually a separate island called Maejima.
Separating the two is the Dofuchi Strait, only 2.5 kilometers long and at its narrowest just 9.93 meters across. It was recognized by Guinness World Records as the world's narrowest strait.
'Didn't even notice it'
As advertised, a visit to the bridge is anticlimactic.
Connecting the Tonosho town office on the Maejima side to the supermarkets and other shops on the Shodoshima side are three bridges that can be crossed by car or on foot in just a few seconds.
One can look down on the strait from one of the bridges, watching fishing boats pass or black sea bream and Japanese sea bass swim. It looks like little more than a small river or canal.
"This is the sea?" wondered Yohei Shiota, 31, a company employee who had come with his family from Awa, Tokushima Prefecture.
"I came by car and passed over the strait without noticing it. I finally got here by using the car navigation system," said Tadashi Mochiyasu, 63, a company employee from Okayama city who was taking photos of the strait.
The shortest of the bridges, Eitaibashi, on which a prefectural road runs, was completed sometime in the Edo period (1603-1867), a Tonosho town government official said. Apparently, some people once had a fight by throwing rocks at each other from opposite sides of the strait.
Efforts to publicize as the world's narrowest, a strait that goes virtually unnoticed even by local residents began about 30 years ago.
3rd time's a Guinness
Shodoshima is a tourist destination, but the places tourists go -- Kankakei gorge, the Twenty-Four Eyes Movie Studio, Olive Garden -- were in the town of Shodoshima, beyond Tonosho.
When Tonosho officials started looking for a tourist spot of their own, their eyes fell on the strait.
The town government and other entities applied for Guinness recognition in 1990 and 1991, but failed both times because the strait lacked an official name.
The town decided to deem it Dofuchi Strait, taking the first characters from Tonosho and from the Fuchizaki district on the Shodoshima side.
In December 1995, after the strait appeared on a map published by the Geospatial Information Authority of Japan, the town's third application was successful in January 1996. Previously, a Greek strait about 40 meters wide in the Aegean Sea had been considered the narrowest in the world.
The effect of the "not big, not long, nothing special, but No. 1 in the world" strait was immediate. Crowds of tourists came to see how anticlimactic it would be. Tour groups from overseas such as from Taiwan have even visited.
For 100, yen the town provides certificates to people who have "traversed" the strait. Since February 1996, more than 175,000 certificates have been issued.
Almost famous
Last summer, Tonosho began offering Shodoshima cruises that take in the island's scenery from the sea. The cruises leave from Tonosho Port on the north side of the strait, which they traverse going out and coming back.
The cruises have been a hit, with passengers marveling at how the strait seems like a river, and at the view of the town from the water.
"It's fun because of how anticlimactic it is," said Toru Fujimoto, 67, who worked on the Guinness campaign when he was a town employee and is now vice director of the Shodoshima-Tonosho tourist association. "People go, 'What the heck is this?' It leaves an impression and makes for a good story."
Looking at the narrowest strait in the world is neither amazing nor exciting. That in itself is impressive, which is what has made this one of Shodoshima's famed tourist spots.
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