猿島 - Monkey Island

Being the idle monkey trainer, it seemed only fitting to visit Sarushima (Monkey Island)(pictured above). Monkey Island is the only remaining natural island in Tokyo Bay. It is located only a few minutes by boat from Yokosuka Naval Base, the forward deployment spot for the U.S. Navy's USS George Washington.

Visiting on the day the George Washington -- a nuclear powered vessel -- arrived in port, meant that a protest was inevitable. Being a Thursday, however, may have dampened participation. Or people really don't care. In either case, there were only seven elderly protesters at the station.

Bypassing the protest, we indulged in a couple of local beers - Sarushima, Yokosuka, and Admaarali (named for Admiral Togo), whose flagship from the Ruso-Japan war in 1905-6 did some serious damage to the Russian's Baltic fleet.


It was then off to Monkey Island. The island was used over various centuries as a fort and gun battalion, defending the bay up through the Meiji era. Remnants of the fort still remain on the island. Monkeys, however, do not reside there.

Upon realization of this fact, I was left to ponder why it was called Monkey Island. So with no information presenting itself, I developed a couple of theories about why there were no monkeys. These of course were based solely on the idea that the name Monkey Island implied the presence of monkeys, at least at the time the island was named. If that was true, then the monkeys had been wiped out by something. I formed two theories:

1. The monkeys were eaten into extension by the numerous kites that hover above the island. This theory, however, supposes that the kites hunt monkeys and there was no evidence to support that. The kites witnessed on Thursday showed more scavenger tendencies. Therefore, theory two came into being:

2. The soldiers posted on the island ate the monkeys into extinction. Again, there was no evidence that the soldiers ever ate monkeys.

Neither theory, however, was nearly as interesting as the real source of the name Monkey Island. The real story runs thus:

A boat of Buddhist monks were traveling in the bay by small boat. A massive storm came up and threatened to swamp the boat. A white monkey appeared before the monks and beckoned them to the safety of the island where the monks could ride out the storm. (White, in Japanese folklore, is often representative of ghosts or spirits. Why a monkey, however, is not really clear.)