Shiokake Matsuri (Splashing Water Festival)
(Wagu, Shima-cho, Shima City)
　
1. The festival is held as prayer for bumper crops of fish. It's an exciting event in which people on fishing boats splash seawater at people on other boats using buckets or hoses. (18 year-old woman, Shima City)
2. This festival has been taken place for more than 600 years. It is a valiant, manly and wonderful festival. (54 year-old, Shima-shi)

"Strange Festival"

Shiokake Matsuri is held on June 1st under the lunar calendar every year. It is an ocean festival (strange festival) that people splash seawater at each other between Wagu Oshima Island and Maehama fishery harbor. It has a history of more than 780 years and it is officially called "Oshima Matsuri" (It used to be also called "Jin Jin" in the old days.)
If you are splashed with the seawater, it is said that you can live in peace and sound health in the year.

This is the moment of splashing seawater.

I desperately aimed my camera (of course it is waterproof) at them and I took pictures while people on the next fishery boat splashed me with seawater. The boat that I took was not allowed to splash water. So, we were just slashed with water for about one hour. I felt really good.



Dedication to a shrine

They dedicate fish that they caught on the festival day to a shrine.

This is a prize picture of "Ise Shima Kirari Sensen Digital Photo Contest in 2004".