01
How it started
We came to Amami looking for a slower way to travel: less itinerary, more tide table; fewer perfect plans, more friends standing around a pile of materials saying, surely this floats.
IKADA
The Raft Before The House
Arriving at Kakeromajima
Our first sail from Amami Oshima — four friends on the raft, pulling up on the beach at Kakeromajima.
02
How we built the raft
The raft was bamboo, scrap wood, blue tarps, rope, and random useful things that had not yet been told they were useless. It was not elegant. It was ours.
03
How Amami shaped it
Amami has a way of making large ideas feel smaller and better. Rain changes the plan. Roads bend around mountains. The sea does not care about your schedule. We liked that.
04
Why IKADA
IKADA means raft. The guest house is named for that first object: not a performance of luxury, but a place to arrive, dry off, cook something simple, and decide what tomorrow might be.
THE RAFT
Building the raft
Photos from building the raft — including the messy middle, not just the finished float.
IN THE NEWS
The raft crossed the strait — and made the local paper.
Four friends built a raft from scrap wood, plastic floats, blue tarps, and rope, then set out from Setouchi to cross the Oshima Strait. Wind and currents changed the plan more than once. When a local newspaper ran the story, it was still just an adventure among friends — not a guest house brand. But that clipping is part of how the name IKADA stayed alive.
One night on the raft
After two days stuck in the bay, we finally sailed out. That night we slept on the raft under the open sky.
THE HOUSE
A guest house named for the raft
We did not build the house. But named for the raft story, it is our base on the island — a place to come back to after rain, roads, mangroves, beaches, and slow meals.