Three little islands sit alone in the Pacific more than a hundred kilometres north of Chichijima, and the Japanese gave them a joke that has lasted. Mukōjima is the bridegroom, Nakōdojima the matchmaker and Yomejima the bride, and together they form the Mukojima group, sometimes called the Parry Islands after a British naval officer. Nobody lives here now. The islands are volcanic remnants, treeless in places and grazed down in the past by goats, and they receive almost no visitors.
That emptiness is the reason the group matters. It lies inside the Ogasawara World Heritage area, and its steep slopes and ledges are nesting ground for seabirds, including albatrosses, which spend most of their lives on the wing over the open ocean and come ashore only to breed. Conservationists have worked here to protect those colonies and even tried to establish a new breeding site for the rare short-tailed albatross, a bird that was once hunted almost to extinction for its feathers. The sea around the islands is deep blue and rich with fish, and whales pass through in winter.
For a rider, honesty is the best policy. There are no roads, no harbours and no shops, and landing is not permitted without special authorisation, because the vegetation and nesting birds are so fragile. The point exists as a marker on the map for anyone following the whole chain of the Ogasawara Islands, and you will see it, if at all, from a boat. The long ferry from Tokyo to Chichijima takes about a day, and tours that go as far as the Mukojima group are rare, weather-dependent and usually arranged through guides on Chichijima.
If you do make it, expect a cold wind even in summer, swells that rise quickly when a storm is passing, and a sense of scale that makes a motorcycle seem a very distant idea. Typhoons come through from late summer, and the winter months are rougher but offer whale watching on the way. Bring seasickness tablets, because the crossing can be long and lively.