Tombolo Land Bridge, Nishiizu

The Tombolo Land Bridge is a rather interesting feature along the Dogashima coast in Nishi-Izu. It’s a pathway leading to an island, only accessible at low tide. At other times, it’s just a random island off the coast and it doesn’t look crossable at all. When we visited at the end of May, there was a crossable time around 11am on a Sunday. Although much of the places we explored in Izu had been pretty sleepy, there were a lot of people checking out the Tombolo - probably thanks to the good timing. It seems the island here is called Zo Island (elephant island). Which apparently is because it looks like an elephant drinking out of the ocean. I don’t really see it? What I did find funny is that we passed two separate groups of people that had the same conversation - that it looks like the nostrils on someone’s nose. Even more excitingly, I spotted my 7th new bird on this trip here. A Pacific reef heron, which basically looks like a dark mode version of an egret. The moment I saw it, it…