Jodogahama

Jōdogahama lies just north-east of the centre of Miyako, one of the main fishing ports of the Sanriku coast. A ridge of white rocks, eroded into sharp pinnacles and topped by Japanese red pines, curves out from the shore and encloses a shallow, clear cove with a beach of white pebbles.

According to local tradition, the priest Reikyō of the late 17th century was so struck by the view that he said it was 'just like the Pure Land' (Jōdo), the paradise of Amida Buddha – hence the name. Since 1955 the cove has been part of the national park along the Sanriku coast, renamed Sanriku Fukkō ('Sanriku Reconstruction') National Park after the 2011 disaster.

The tsunami of 11 March 2011 swept through the cove and damaged its facilities. Reconstruction was completed within a few years, and the beach has become a symbol of the recovery of the Iwate coast.

The white rocks are rhyolite, a silica-rich volcanic rock formed about 50 million years ago. Unlike the long ria inlets further south, the coast around Miyako is a mix of uplifted terraces and drowned valleys. Waves have picked out joints in the rhyolite to form sharp spires, sea caves and small islets, while the sheltered cove behind them has collected rounded pebbles of the same rock.

The meeting of the cold Oyashio and warm Kuroshio currents off Sanriku makes these some of Japan's richest fishing waters. Black-tailed gulls nest on the islets, and the pines on the white rocks are Japanese red pines adapted to thin, salty soils.

Miyako is a major fishing port, and the surrounding coast is known for salmon, sea urchin, abalone and wakame seaweed. The Sanriku coast has been struck by great tsunamis many times, and memorials and evacuation signs along the shore recall the disasters of 1896, 1933 and 2011.