giant whirlpools

giant whirlpools Review

The thunderous roar of giant whirlpools fills the cliffs around the Naruto Kaikyo (the Naruto Straits), splitting the peaceful sky and green mountainsides asunder with a chaos of furious, frothing sea. See the whirlpools from a glass-bottomed gantry 45 meters above the water or, better still, from the deck of a tour boat down in the belly of the beast.

The walkway, called uzu-no-michi, gives a great view of the pools and the seacoast, but you'll wish you had chosen the boats. There are a few companies with different-size vessels and marginally different prices (¥1,500-¥2,500). All the rides are exhilarating. Two of the best boat tours are Wonder Naruto and Aqua Eddy. Which you select will depend on what time you arrive, and what time the pools reach their active peak on that day. The whirlpools are formed when the pull of changing tides forces a huge volume of seawater through the narrow, rocky bottleneck. The tide calendar will let you know what time to see the pools at their best on any given day; the straights will froth furiously for a good hour on each end of the peak.