Anijima, whose name means elder brother island, lies a short boat ride off Chichijima in the Ogasawara or Bonin Islands, a chain of volcanic specks roughly a thousand kilometres south of Tokyo. Nobody gets here by accident. The only link to the mainland is the ferry that makes the journey of around twenty-four hours, running about once a week, and the whole group has never been joined to any continent. That isolation is why UNESCO listed it as a natural World Heritage Site in 2011, calling it an oceanic Galápagos.
You will not ride on Anijima itself, which has no real road network, but the water around it is the reason for the point. The reefs and clear channels are home to green turtles, which nest on the islands, and reef fish in an extraordinary range of colours. From roughly January to April, humpback whales come to the area to breed, and boat trips from Chichijima can bring you astonishingly close to mothers and calves. Dolphins are around most of the year. Boats and small guided groups are the only practical way to see it, and local operators follow rules that keep their distance from the animals.
On land the story is of plants and snails. Evolution on these islands produced endemic trees and a collection of land snails found nowhere else, and the arrival of rats, goats and feral cats did serious damage. Years of work to remove invasive animals from the smaller islets have helped native species recover. The Bonin flying fox, a large fruit bat, is one of the few native land mammals.
For practical purposes the base is Chichijima's port town. It has a modest selection of guesthouses, small restaurants and a petrol station, and rental scooters and bicycles are available for the island's short roads. The weather is subtropical, with the typhoon season from about August to October, and it is worth building flexibility into any plan, since a ferry can be delayed by weather. The islands also have a layered human history, from early settlers who arrived in 1830 to the wartime years and American administration until 1968, giving the place an unusual blend of Japanese and Western names and customs.