When the tide is out and the weather conditions are just right, the shores of Fukutsu transform into a 3km, crystal-clear mirror. "Every morning when I come to work, I look at the ocean and think, 'How is it doing today?'," said Rumi Nakamura. "If the ocean is a beautiful blue, then I feel happy, and if the waves are rough, I feel a stirring in my heart.
We [locals] take a lot of pride in the sea, and it's like a part of our family." Nakamura grew up in Fukutsu, in Japan's southern Fukuoka prefecture, right on the coast. The ocean has always had a special place in her heart; it's where she would play in the sand with her friends and splash around in its waters.
But having now spent time on beaches elsewhere in the world, she realised there's something that makes Fukutsu's coastline even more special: the stunning mirror effect that is created along its 3km sands. When the conditions are just right, she says, you can see beautiful reflections of the sky on the beaches – and it makes you feel like you're at the edge of the Earth. "From my childhood, we knew that when the tide goes out and someone is standing further away they'd be reflected in the water, or that the clouds would be reflected and create a really beautiful scene," she said.
Now, Nakamura works at the local tourism board to share that beauty with the world. While it was just a local secret when she was growing up, in recent years that striking reflective phenomenon, called the Fukutsu Kagami no Umi (Fukutsu Se.
