Every evening at the hotel, our local guide shared tons of stories with us. They mentioned that the summer season we visited was prime time for kombu fishing and drying. And true enough, as we drove around the island, we kept spotting kombu laid out to dry on gravel patches, just like you see here!
The kombu was laid out to dry without overlapping and all facing the same direction. It looked about a meter long (I learned later that wild kombu is around one meter, but cultivated ones can grow almost three meters!).
The dried kombu was bundled up, tied inside something like a box as shown in the photo, and then loaded onto mini-vehicles for transport. I saw mini-vehicles carrying these kombu bundles quite frequently, which made me feel like it’s a pretty common job here.
Good quality wild kombu can fetch a pretty high price. I guess it’s a crucial summer industry for this island, especially since going out to sea becomes difficult in winter, reducing other work opportunities.
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