Four days before our departure to the islands of South Western Japan the largest tropical storm on Earth in 2026 was bearing down on the island of Ishigaki – our destination. As we tracked Super Typhoon Champi we learned about its sustained winds of up to 295 kms/hour and it’s unusually large 50 km wide eye. The whole typhoon stretched across Taiwan and all the way up to Okinawa as it travelled just west of Iriomote and Ishigaki.I watched the winds battering the trees and traffic lights until the Ishigaki web cam went off line. It remained offline for the next day.
Yesterday I received replies to my messages to our first few accommodations. Things are fortunately returning to normal and they are looking forward to welcoming us.
Luckily we were able to get on an earlier flight from Victoria to Vancouver to avoid a white knuckle race to board our flight to Tokyo. We will spend the night at an airport hotel and fly to Ishigaki tomorrow.
