After years of crawling under log jams and scouring every square inch of beaches in the Pacific NorthWest, I have finally found my very own ‘Japanese glass fishing float!’ Well, make that ‘floats’! Perhaps I shouldn’t be so excited since these particular balls bobbed their way only a few hundred miles up the Sea of Japan to land on the outstretched arm of Tyk sandspit, which projects from the west coast of Sakhalin at a jaunty angle – perfectly placed to collect these spherical wonders.  Sarah looked at me in surprise as I yelped for joy at discovering a small glass float within 5 metres of my tent. We had just completed a 26 nautical mile paddle from mainland Russia & she was no doubt wondering whether the 8 hours paddling had affected my brain. Why was I was so excited about a small glass ball!? Well, apart from the fact that they are pretty…. I suppose I think finding a glass float is like a ‘rite of passage’. If you seakayak enough in certain wild places then you are bound to find one, one day. It sounds a bit silly when I write it down, but I was very pleased none the less! I soon convinced Sarah that it was special to discover one of these traditional balls that kept many nets afloat before the invention of plastic. We both disappeared in opposite directions along the beach and didn’t have to go far before discovering another one, and another one, and oh my goodness, another one! At the risk of going on about this far too much, I was particularly pleased to find a couple with the original rope netting on them…

OK, I should mention that I’ve spent 4 days kayaking in Far East Russia with Sarah Outen. We had originally planned to dash across to Sakhalin from mainland Russia across the narrowest gap, a distance of about 4 miles. But Sarah’s bike Hercules had other ideas. Or perhaps her kayak Nelson had a word with Hercules and said ‘It’s my turn’. Either way, Hercules bearings disintegrated just as he rolled up to the sea at De Kastri, 100km short of his final destination at Lasarev. This small town was not able to provide new bearings on a Sunday and so a cunning plan was devised to let Nelson feel the ripples of the sea a day early. We poured over maps and decided that we would kayak north from De Kastri &; if the weather allowed we’d cross to Sakhalin a bit further south than originally planned, at a wider point, a distance of about 23 nautical miles.  In my opinion, Nelson & Hercules’ conspiracy turned out to be a stroke of luck for us as the coastline north of De Kastri was incredibly beautiful with red cliffs rising 250 metres from the sea, ribbon waterfalls spilling down onto sandy beaches, and a few eagle sightings (the rare Stellar Sea eagles perhaps?). We had been warned that there were few (or no) places to land but the contours on the map suggested otherwise and we found a few possible camping options. We settled for a wide beach 3 miles short of our crossing point.Sarah had just paddled about 40km after not kayaking for almost 6 months.

The forecast for the crossing was good – winds partly behind us and decreasing through the day but the gusts were a little stronger than predicted, meaning a tricky quartering sea, and breaking waves in the shallow Sea of Tartar. Sarah wanted to give it a go. A mile out & the waves were already breaking, but she wanted to press on and looked pretty comfortable (despite confessing to being really nervous inside). In fact the wind and waves did drop after a couple of hours and we made good progress towards Sakhalin. We couldn’t see the low lying Tyk peninsula until we were a mile or two away. Although we had a GPS, it was still a relief to see we were in more or less the right place! Sarah amazes me with her tenacity and guts, paddling on a 7 and a half hour crossing in rough seas on her 2nd day in a kayak since April.

We kayaked south on Sakhalin for 2 out of the next 3 days. The coast started off low and sandy and gradually grew in relief with low cliffs getting slowly higher. Further south than we paddled they turn into mountains! On day3 the tail end of a typhoon by Japan whipped up the sea more to more than we wanted to paddle in & we stayed in bed. The last day was flat calm and we made 23 miles to a village and a road where Sarah was reunited with a fixed Hercules. On the way we saw hundreds of seals craning the necks curiously to get a look at these strange creatures passing by, and 5 or 6 rusty shipwrecks, beached on shore or on a sandbar – one giant wreck smashed in half. We didn’t see any brown bears although we did spy some rather large footprints on the beach, and the reflection of 2 bright eyes just before going to bed one night.
Now Sarah is cycling south down Sakhalin, due in the capital Yuzno on Thursday. After that we kayak down to the SW tip of Sakhalin & cross to Japan.

I also filmed and edited a video of Sarah cycling on the sometimes dubious ‘roads’ of Far Eastern Russia to get to the start of the kayaking.