Into the Kurils

From Tuyleniy, we head east across the Sea of Okhotsk towards the volcanic island chain known as the Kurils. There are some 50 or so islands in the chain between the northern tip of Hokkaido and the southern tip of Kamchatka. Like Sakhalin, over the years the islands have changed hands several times between Japan and Russia. Since the end of WWII the Kurils have been Russian territory although Japan still lays claim to a couple of islands at the southern end of the chain, a point of on-going friction between the two countries.

The Kuril Island chain marks a "subduction zone", where one of the earth's plates is pushing down and under the adjacent plate. The pressure and disruption this movement causes results in intense volcanic and seismic activity, hence the string of volcanic islands which comprise the Kurils. On the eastern (Pacific) side of the chain, the continuing subduction has resulted in an extremely deep oceanic trench which indeed gives the feeling that the Kuril Islands are standing on the edge of an abyss! Strong ocean currents sweeping south from the Arctic and north from the Pacific have resulted in this being one of the world's richest fish, sea bird and marine mammal zones. It's inaccessibility though (and Russian military activity!) mean that few humans visit! And visiting is really only possible during the very short summer - storms and sea ice isolate the area for much of the rest of the year. Since relations between Russian and the west have cooled in recent years, it's become increasingly difficult to visit the region. Limited numbers of permits are issued and the Russian authorities insist that any ships stick to an approved route and schedule with no deviations or allowances for bad weather

After more than a day of sailing through pretty rough seas, we arrive at our first destination in the southern Kurils, a pair of uninhabited volcanic islands known as the Chirpoys. The intention is to land on one of the two, the site of a volcano that last erupted as recently as 2013. The fall-back if landing conditions are judged to be in safe is to take a zodiac cruise around the island to view its colony of Steller sea lions. As it turns out heavy rain, strong winds and a churning sea don't allow for either of these two options and we have to make do with a slow sail past the cloud-covered volcanoes. None of this bothers many of our fellow-cruisers, enthusiastic birders who are more than content to spend hours on the wind and rain-swept open decks armed with binoculars and long-lensed cameras trying to get a glimpse of another bird to be ticked off their lifetime lists....

Cabin fever sets in

Cabin fever is starting to set in - it's been almost 5 days since we last set foot on land. So we all breathe a sigh of relief the next morning when we arrive at Yankicha Island, a volcanic caldera - a partly flooded crater resulting from a volcanic eruption. The ship's foghorn has been going all night, but the rain has eased up and the wind dropped so despite low visibility we're finally able to disembark on to zodiacs for a wet landing on the island. The caldera is still a very active geothermal area - lots of sulphurous steam, sulphur-fringed vents (fumaroles) and pools and streams of boiling water. The island is covered in a carpet of lush vegetation and spectacular flowers including a variety of orchids. It's truly amazing how anything can survive and flourish in this incredibly harsh environment!

The caldera is also home to one of the world's most impressive avian displays. Crested auklets and their much rarer cousins, the whiskered auklets are members of the puffin family. Smaller and not quite as cute as puffins, the auklets are nevertheless very appealing little birds with what are described as "spectacular sexual ornaments". Literally hundreds of thousands of these birds nest on Yankicha Island. They congregate in vast flocks, floating on the lagoon in what look like giant mats. When we approach the "mats", swarms of the birds fly off in massive formations creating auklet clouds!

Saved by a wondering albatross

We sail further north up the island chain. Later that same day, the ship drops anchor in thick fog and choppy seas. Our expedition leader tells us that we've arrived at something called Lovusky Rocks. Not that we can see anything other than thick fog and choppy seas! Nevertheless we're told that a zodiac cruise is possible to take a look at the seal and sea lion colonies on these invisible rocks.

We set off in a zodiac driven by Jonathan, our very enthusiastic deputy chief birder. Within seconds, the ship is no longer visible, the sea is getting rougher and there's not a sign of a rock. Undaunted, Jonathan assures us that he has both a great sense of direction and a GPS device in which he's entered the rocks' coordinates. Twenty minutes later with no rocks in sight, even Jonathan is appearing a little nervous. He tries to disguise his anxiety by identifying the few seabirds that emerge through the fog and mutters something about turning around and returning to the ship! So we're all a little relieved (not least Jonathan) when out of the fog a murky shape appears - not the now "mythical" rocks, but our ship! We had in fact circled back though whether by accident or design is unclear!! We did set out again in a small convoy of zodiacs and eventually do stumble across Lovusky Rocks and its resident colony of fur seals and Steller sea lions.

A relieved Jonathan celebrates by spotting a Laysan albatross for us....

The ghost of Uncle Joe

Our final stop in the Kurils is at Atlasova Island which unlike Lovusky Rocks, which doesn't seem to warrant much mention on the Internet, does have its own WikiPedia entry. All that's mentioned though is the spectacular Mt Fuji shaped, snow capped volcano that dominates the small uninhabited island. Although the fog has lifted, most of the volcano is shrouded in cloud so we'll just have to take WikiPedia's word that it's actually still there. What WikiPedia fails to mention is that the island has the ruins of a settlement. From what we're able to glean (from the Russian agents controlling this section of the expedition), the island was home to a gulag - a penal settlement for female political prisoners who were apparently set to work on behalf of the fox fur trade. Everything's rather overgrown now, but from the detritus left behind, it would certainly seem that the settlement was likely "flourishing" until not that long ago - certainly in the mid-20th century if not later....

And for the the first time since we left Japan behind almost a week ago, the sun has reappeared.....