Small ships in Japan

Hello,

We're fans of small ship cruising and currently looking at a trip to Japan. We will do most of the trip independently, travelling by train, but interested to know if anyone knows of any local three or four day small ship cruises in Japan? Perhaps around the Osaka region. We're not looking for Ponant or Silverseas, just a short, local cruise on a comfortable little boat (preferably 50 passengers or less with some English speaking guides).. Checked google but can't seem to find anything..

If anyone is aware of such as cruise I would love to hear more about it!

Thanks in advance

We have not used these types of services, but I have seen advertisements and a short report on NHK (national television network). You might check on youtube to see if anyone has posted any videos. These ferries are used by mostly local Japanese.

http://www.osaka-ferry.net/10eng/

If you Googled "Japanese owned cruise lines" you would find loads of information on the small Japanese cruise lines that sail around Japan. These small ships carry more than 50 people, but are quite small by international standards. Although they look like cruise ships, they operate on standards similar to very nice ferries.

Thanks loeb and BruceMuzz for your responses - appreciated... We've decided to put off the Japanese cruising for now (still visit by land) and perhaps look at doing a little cruise in iceland for our cruising trip next year.