Finally Back to the Mainland at Okhotsk

Across Siberia to America – Part 19

In this installment, Khvostov and Davydov complete the sea portion of their journey. It takes them nearly three weeks to cover the 500 miles or so across the Sea of Okhotsk from the Kuril Islands south of the Kamchatka Peninsula to port at Okhotsk. When they finally reach Okhotsk, it also takes them a couple of days to find a combination of wind and tide that will allow them to bring their ship to its final mooring. While they are waiting, Davydov commits an unnecessary, and nearly fatal, indiscretion, which he describes frankly and sheepishly.

The previous installment:

Back Across the North Pacific Toward Okhotsk.

They arrived in Okhotsk in late August 1803, and if the Company had need to deliver provisions or people from there to Kodiak, Khvostov and Davydov may well have turned around and taken their ship back to Alaska. But there was nothing ready, so, rather than winter in Okhotsk, Khvostov and Davydov decide that it’s time for them to go home.

DAVYDOV’S NARRATIVE (Continued)

CHAPTER V (Cont’d).

2 August [1803].

With a gentle NE wind, we sailed WSW until six o’clock in the afternoon; after that there was a breeze between N and W. On this day, we saw two whales, many fulmars, several cockerels or sea swallows and one Albatross.

3 August.

There was calm until two o’clock in the afternoon, and then a gentle breeze from NW by N, with which we stood to WSW. During the calm, I shot 8 fulmars and one Albatross, whose meat did not smell like whale blubber and seemed to us very tasty. A different kind of fulmar was noticed here. They are smaller than the others, with darker feathers and a sharper nose, and they are faster in flight.

Sea of Okhotsk, Kamchatka Peninsula, and western Aleutians. The Kurils are the string of islands more or less connecting Kamchatka with Hokkaido (Japan). Map by Jake Chila.

4 August.

At six o’clock in the afternoon, while we lay W by S with the wind NE by E, we suddenly felt that our ship trembled, as if slightly touching bottom. A few seconds later we felt a second time the same blow, and a sound like very distant thunder. We assumed that this was due to an earthquake, but we are not certain whether we would notice the impacts of one at such a great depth, and, moreover, it did not produce a storm, or any other lesser change in the state of the Atmosphere.

5 August.

With a quiet variable wind between NE by N and NNW, we stood W by S. In the morning, we saw a sea plant floating on the sea, which grows on the shallows, very fresh, which always serves as a fairly sure sign of the proximity of the land. At six o’clock in the afternoon we saw the Kamchatka coast, first from the lookout, and then from the deck. At night the sea seemed more luminous than usual, which it seems to me always happens approaching the coast.

6 August.

With a calm wind from NNW, we stood down to W, in the strait dividing Paramushir Island from Onekotan Island, usually called the third Kuril Strait [modern charts call this strait the fourth Kuril Strait, but who’s counting? –JT.]. At 11 o’clock in the morning it became calm and the shorelines were obscured with clouds. During the calm, we shot fulmars, which we much preferred to our poor food supply.

7 August.

Calm all day. In the evening there was a gentle breeze alternating between NE and E; we began to keep NW and WNW.

8 August.

Until six o’clock in the morning there was fog, but then it soon cleared up, and we ascended into the third Kuril Strait with a gentle ESE wind, which afterwards became quite fresh. There could not a more convenient passage than the strait between the Kuril Islands: it is clean everywhere, about five German miles wide, and the shores lying around are clearly visible. There is a high mountain at the southwestern tip of Paramushir; not far from this the islet Shirinki [more commonly now called Antisferov –JT.], which looks like a haystack or a very high ridge. Further [north], the [volcanic] island of Alaid appears, which was visible first of all when we came around the western side [of Paramushir]; sometimes only the top of it is visible on top of the clouds. Onekotan has two mountains like sugar heads, and to the west of it is the islet of Makanrushi. In general, everything rises extremely high and is always covered with snow in places. We saw many orcas in the strait, and at night a small whale played for a very long time near the ship.

White orca spotted in the fourth Kuril strait, 2014. Russian Orca.

9 August.

With a fresh topsail wind, sometimes blowing harder, sometimes more gently, and changing between E by S and NE by E, we stood NW by N under topsails in which we took one reef, foresail, mainsail, jib, and at times, topgallants.

10 to 14 August.

The calm, or gentle alternating winds, during which we held NW by N, continued for five days. Every day we saw birds, common to these seas, sometimes porpoises, and once a whale.

15 August.

The wind was quite fresh, shifting between SW by W and W by S, we kept NW by N and NNW. About noon on the starboard side on the horizon, something bright appeared, similar to the way the sun rises. This glory in one minute approached the ship and soon again departed in the same direction; the water at that time had the color of a pale fire. They assure us that such phenomena often occur here, which the promyshlenniks call a flash [other translations of the Russian word are panic and alarm –JT.].

16 August.

Alternating wind between S and W, and then a slight wind from the same side: we went to NW by N. In the morning, among more of the usual birds, we saw one Uril, from which we concluded (as our reckoning showed) that we were not far from the island of St. Jonah [Iony Island, a tiny islet about 150 miles nearly due south of Okhotsk –JT.], toward which this bird, briefly moving away from the coast, soon flew away. At times, fish jumped out of the sea, of course belonging to the schools going to the rivers flowing into the Sea of Okhotsk.

17 August.

Quiet breezes and low wind between SE and NE. At noon, we reckoned ourselves 155 English miles from Okhotsk, at a point between SE and S½E. We saw a lot of puffins, fulmars and a few albatrosses or seven-foot gulls.

At 8 o’clock in the morning we saw between N and NE the coast adjacent to the high Cape Shilkap [this is now called Duga West Point, on the northern coast of the Sea of Okhotsk –JT.]. The night was such as can be considered a rarity in the local climate. With a full moon, a completely cloudless sky and a clear horizon, we could see very clearly everything stretching from Okhotsk to Shilkap [this is a span of 80 or 90 miles –JT.].

19 August.

With a gentle wind from SW and WSW, we sailed towards NW, being accompanied by the current, usually here, from along the shore. Around midnight the wind turned NW.

20 August.

With a quiet, somewhat variable, but always contrary wind, we sailed near Shilkap. The last two days we have seen a lot of a special kind of molluscs, called here fats. In the afternoon, near the ship, seals played in great numbers.

21 August.

The wind that had blown from N in the morning went to NE, and then there was little wind between S and E, which moved us to the mouth of the Okhota River. At ten o’clock in the evening, a baidarka of the American Company came to us from Okhotsk, in which they brought fresh beef and other food supplies. Around midnight the ebb tide began, so we lay down at anchor.

22 August.

At 8 o’clock in the morning we weighed anchor and went by tug to the mouth of the Okhota River. Soon there was a little wind between S and E, so we set sail and passed across the bar or breakwater, as the water shifted to the ebb. A few sazhens from the southern promontory, we set our ship across very steep banks and rocked so violently that we shipped water on both sides. We dropped an anchor and wanted to bring in ropes, thinking still to warp ourselves into the river against the current; but noticing that there was already a lot of water, we took off, crossed back over the breakwater and stopped at anchor 2 1/2 versts from Okhotsk.

Wanting to find out if there were any letters for us in Okhotsk, I went in a baidarka, but since the mouth of the river was too far away, I had to land on the shore directly opposite the ship, where a high and steep breaker was moving with great force. We had to wait for the largest roller, which carried us by itself to the shore, where the front rower and I immediately jumped out and pulled the baidarka ashore after us, so that the next roller that came only doused the rear rower from head to toe.

The Okhotsk coast is very shallow: four versts from it, the depth is no more than four sazhens. For this reason, the sound of breakers is always heard near Okhotsk, louder at low tide, especially when the wind from the open sea becomes very high, bringing in steep white waves that break with an extraordinary roar. This noise alone makes the position of Okhotsk very unpleasant, for it brings depression and boredom. In a quiet time, the inhabitants of this city will always know what the weather will be like, because if the waves break hard on the spit from the northern bank of the Okhota River, or put another way: when the Tunguska cat howls (as city residents say), then the weather will be clear; if the Uratsky cat is howling, that is, a spit going from the southern bank, in which the Urak river is located, then there will be bad weather.

After spending two hours with Mr. Polev and taking from him letters to Khvostov and myself, I went to my baidarka. By then the tide was already low, the wind was blowing quite fresh from the sea and a powerful wave was breaking on the shore. Many people gathered around the baidarka, and everyone was talking about the impossibility of going, with which my rowers agreed. Someone they called the Pioneer (the head of the promyshlenniks) said that he had been in a baidarka for 33 years already, and therefore he boldly assured me that there was no way to drive away from the shore. I wanted to prove to him that it is possible; for this I persuaded the rowers to set off to the ship, despite the advice of the assembly around us. So we got into the baidarka on dry land, put on kamleiki [we encountered these earlier; they were a sort of leather hoodie –JT.], tight-fitting, laced up, waited for the biggest breaker to come: then we ordered the people to push, and we pulled with all our might. The first roller that we encountered rolled over only the front rower, the second cleared his head, came up to my neck, and broke through my sprayskirt. It was too late to turn around, and it was impossible to adjust the sprayskirt; and therefore we had no choice but to row with all our might, to move quickly away from the shore. Another roller covered us, but then we got out of the surf and saw that there was so much water in the baidarka that it barely stayed afloat. From the shore, all the time, while we were between the high waves, they did not see our baidarka and considered us lost; but when they finally saw us safe, they began to wave their hats as a sign of their joy. I must admit that stubbornness is an important part of my disposition, and several times it has cost me dearly. I do not justify this act of mine: it deserves more the name of reprehensible audacity than commendable courage. I realized that myself, but only afterwards, not at the time I undertook it. I can say that in this case only extraordinary good luck saved me from my extreme indiscretion.

23 August.

At the midday high tide, we ascended the mouth of the Okhota River and stopped at anchor in the Kukhtuy in order to wait out the current dying down. We sent to run a warp to the Okhota, but it was not brought quickly enough; meanwhile, the current changed and became very strong from the river, the warp did not take and pulled back to the ship when they began to pull it in. Then, to resist the flow of the river, we set up topsails, topgallants and foresail. The wind was fresh from the south. The vessel under these sails, although it can usually make up to 4 1/2 knots, still moved backward. In the meantime, the water had fallen so much that we feared that we would run aground on the shoal and lose the ship, so we dropped anchor just to stay in the river. But since it still continued to drift (drag us back), we decided to use our sails to press up against the Tunguska bank and ground there. When the water ebbed and the surf subsided, we began to unload the ship. In two and a half or three hours, we took out all the cargo, lowered the topmasts, removed all the running rigging, topsails, topmasts, topmast spars, topgallant masts, the topgallant yards, brought up the barrels, and emptied all the fresh water out of the hold. Having finished these tasks, we rigged an anchor and various warps for pulling the ship. The wind became very fresh from the south, causing considerable surf, and several cables snapped; but at last, at ten o’clock in the evening, we got off the sandbank and pulled up to the Okhota bank, on which we moored.

Our sea voyage is over. Sv. Elizaveta had nothing to return to America with; it had to stay for the winter in Okhotsk. For this reason, Khvostov and I decided to go to St. Petersburg, setting our itinerary in such a way as to stay in some cities of Siberia, to get a better understanding of this vast part of Russia.

Khvostov and Davydov ended up spending about a month in Okhotsk, after which they began their overland journey home. In the upcoming installments, we will see that travel in Siberia in winter was much different from in summer. The extreme cold made travel both harder, for the obvious reasons, and easier – think ice road truckers.