S P O T ／ SPOT-306

Watatsumi Shrine (Katsurahama Ryuogu / Dragon King Shrine)

海津見神社（桂浜龍王宮）わたつみじんじゃ・かつらはまりゅうおうぐう

Perched on a rocky reef at the very tip of Ryuo Point, where Katsurahama Beach juts into the Pacific, this tiny vermilion shrine is dedicated to Owatatsumi-no-kami, the god of the sea. Known popularly as the Ryuogu, or Dragon King Palace, it merges sea-deity worship with faith in the dragon as a water god—prayed to for safe voyages, abundant catches, matchmaking, and rain or fair weather. Tradition holds that the Chosokabe clan, who ruled the province of Tosa until the late 16th century, enshrined the deity here, though the founding date is unknown. The shrine sits on a narrow shelf of land hemmed in by white stone fencing and wave-cut rock, with the open ocean immediately at its back. Generations of Urado fishermen revered it; a local tale recalls wives passing the hours before the shrine while their husbands were out at sea. The image of a vermilion sanctuary thrust out over the waves makes it a strikingly literal embodiment of dragon-deity worship—an unusual seaside sacred site that also serves as the scenic core of Katsurahama Park, opposite its famous statue of Sakamoto Ryoma.