Okoshiki Coast

The Ariake Sea has one of the largest tidal ranges in Japan, and when it goes out at Okoshiki it leaves several kilometres of sand ribbed into crescent-shaped ridges by the wind and the current. The water left in the troughs takes the colour of the sky — blue at midday, violet at dusk, orange at sunset, gold under a full moon.

It is on the national lists of both best beaches and best sunsets. The photograph everyone wants requires the low tide and the sunset to coincide, with the tide under fifty centimetres in the hour around sunset, and that happens on roughly ten days a year, concentrated between late February and early April. On those days photographers arrive from across Japan. The rest of the year it is a fine empty coast with a viewpoint above it.