VLADIVOSTOK AT LAST
The Korean Air jet begins its descent into the Vladivostok airport.
After 15 butt-numbing, shoulder-rubbing hours in coach class, plus
long layovers in Los Angeles and Seoul, I'm ready for a shower and
abed. As the wheels of the plane touch asphalt, Dean Morrow turns to
offer a high five in celebration. "Now, let's hope they let us
into the country," he adds. Despite months of preparation, our
visas to enter Russia had arrived only two days before our departure
date. In addition, we were traveling not on the usual tourist visas,
but by special invitation of the Far East Institute of Marine Biology.
In the days of the Soviet Union, the slightest glitch in paperwork
would have resulted in lengthy delays and endless explanations. Today,
officials of the new Russian Republic scarcely glance at our visas; we
are whisked through customs and immigration with speed and smiles.
Valeri is waiting outside with a driver - and good news. For the past
two weeks, he tells us, the region endured one of the strongest
typhoons of the century. Fortunately, the heavy rains and wind
subsided just hours before our arrival and perfect summer weather is
expected for the next two weeks.
Lying at the same latitude as northern
California, Vladivostok has been compared to San Francisco. Both
cities perch on a series of hills that surround a large, sheltered bay,
both
were settled in the 1800s by pioneers pushing toward the Pacific, and
both are important commercial and military ports. Vladivostok's
buildings show signs of wear and neglect, but also hints of an
emerging economic rebirth. Decrepit government buildings are
interspersed with colorful shops, clubs and restaurants. The roads are
surprisingly busy and the majority of cars are imports. "Where
are the Russian cars - the Ladas and UAZs?" I ask. "Soviet
junk," Valeri tells me. "Now, everyone with money goes to
Japan and brings back used Toyotas. Russia is one huge dumping ground
for all Chinese and Japanese crap they can't send to America." We
check into the Hotel Vladivostok, a towering remnant of the Soviet era
complete with creaking elevators, sporadic plumbing and uniformed
floor monitors. These days, the monitors aren't state employees
charged with scrutinizing the comings and goings of each guest.
Instead, they are hotel employees who spend most of their time
evicting freelance prostitutes and riding herd on Chinese tour groups.
Before turning in for the night, I skim the
scientific information Valeri has provided on the Far East Federal Marine
Reserve. Created in 1983, the reserve encompasses several hundred
miles of undeveloped coastline and extends offshore to include several
small groups of islands. According to biological surveys, the reserve
has the greatest biodiversity of any marine ecosystem in Russia. It is
home to more than 2,000 species of invertebrates, 300-plus varieties
offish and marine mammals and some 300 types of birds. The publication
also states that underwater visibility can reach 100 feet and this is
a research paper, not some tourist brochure. "We may have better
diving than expected," I tell Dean.
COOL BOAT, WARM WATER
It
is not the rusty fishing boat we expected. Instead, we are welcomed
aboard a gleaming 5o-foot motor yacht. Owner Sergey Nikiforov is one
of the small but growing members of Russia's upper class. In 1990 he
opened the first electronics store in Vladivostok, bringing Japanese
televisions and Korean CD players to the proletariat. An occasional
diver and avid yachtsman, Sergey has offered to guide us to the
Rimski-Korsakov Archipelago, a group of offshore islands in the heart
of the reserve that can be entered only by special permit. The yacht's
big turbo-diesel engines crank up, we exit the harbor and thread our
way through a Sunday afternoon fleet of sailboats and fishing skiffs.
The bow churns through muddy brown water - the result of last week's
coastal flooding. As we move farther offshore from Amursky Bay into
the Gulf of Peter the Great, the water makes a gradual transition to
blue. Two hours later, we pick up a mooring in a small bay on the
northwest corner of Pelis Island. From the flying bridge, I can
clearly see the sand bottom through 30 feet of emerald green water. A
ramshackle collection of buildings and docks line the shore and a pair
of small aluminum boats sit on the rocky beach. This is one of the
reserve's two ranger stations. Here a handful of dedicated volunteers
live year-round in primitive conditions, depending on private
donations and sporadic state funding for even basic staples. The small
skiffs on the beach are their only patrol craft.
Despite Valeri's assurances of warm water, I had
assumed the worst and almost packed a drysuit. The surface waters of
the Gulf vary widely in temperature, often turning to ice in the
winter, then warming into
the mid-70s by late summer. Dean tests the water with a tentative toe.
Meanwhile, Sergey simply strips to his shorts and jumps overboard. We
all don masks and snorkels and begin free diving for the giant
scallops that litter the sand bottom. After a lunch of scallop sushi,
we load scuba gear into a small inflatable and motor along rock cliffs
that tumble to the sea in a confused collection of ledges and
pinnacles. Below the light aquamarine surface, we can see the
indistinct shapes of huge boulders. We stop at a massive headland and
drop anchor on a patch of off-white rock 100 yards from the cliff face.
Easing overboard in light wetsuits, we find we are a top a stone tower
that rises precipitously from depths beyond 100 feet. A slight current
washes the pillar, which is covered in a rich carpet of stalked
anemones, pink carbon algae, encrusting sponges, multi-colored muscles
and giant orange-red tunicates.
Sea
urchins, red sea stars and bat stars prowl the vertical rock while
greenling, sea perch and china rocks hover in the shadows. It is a
perfect slice of cold-water Pacific eco-system - minus the cold water.
I am so absorbed in watching a ling cod that I almost miss the giant
octopus. My fin touches what appears to be a gray outcropping in a
boulder field; the rock turns rust brown and comes to life. What was a
confused mass of soft tissue takes on a streamlined shape as eight
long tentacles align behind a head the size of a soccer ball. The
octopus emits a cloud of dark ink, then jets off into the depths. We
give chase, but at a depth of 80 feet, a layer of bone-chilling water
stops us cold. We have found the thermocline. To penetrate the
48-degree water below, we'll need 7mm suits with hoods and gloves. We
surface, exchange excited commentary and marvel at our luck. "A
giant octopus on our first dive," Dean marvels. "What are
the chances of that happening?" "Only one?" Sergey asks.
"That's not a very good dive." For the next two days, we
explore the waters around Pelis Island, hike to abandoned World War II
gun batteries, prospect for amethyst stones on deserted beaches and
trap enough king crabs for an evening feast. The quality and diversity
of the underwater scene far exceeds our expectations.
DOWN BY THE BAY
We creep along the coast, using radar to feel our way through the fog.
To our right are the towering cliff faces of the
Asian mainland. Ahead lies a narrow opening into Vityaz Bay. Protected
from almost all wind and sea conditions by a ring of steep hills, this
oblong body of water was once the site of a secret Soviet sub base and
a military dolphin training program. As we enter the confines of the
bay, the fog lifts. A pair of 19th-century wooden whaling ships lie
abandoned in the shallows and a bright red Zodiac inflatable is
beached in front of a two-story log cabin. This is Valeri's dive lodge,
a dream he and his sons Denis and Demitri completed just last year.
The lodge is done in traditional Russian style, and built entirely of
native wood. A huge clay furnace and a long dinner table dominate the
great room. In the days ahead, the guests and staff of the lodge will
spend a lot of time around this table swapping tales, sharing meals
and offering toasts. Equally important to lodge life is the adjoining
steam bath. Russians take this form of ablution very seriously, we
learned, parboiling themselves in a 200-degree chamber, beating each
other with hot oak leaves to restore circulation, then plunging into
an ice-cold bath. After an evening session in the steam bath and a
glass of local vodka, sleep comes easily.
By the end of the first week, we have settled
into a comfortable routine. Each morning we fill scuba tanks from
Valeri's massive military surplus compressor. Originally built to
pressurize ballistic missile
silos, this five-stage stainless and titanium juggernaut cranks out
200 cubic feet a minute at a pressure of 6,000 psi. With full tanks
and loaded cameras, we had the choice of exploring the region's many
offshore spires or submerged rock walls, visiting one of a half-dozen
local wrecks, or stopping off at Octopus Rock for a tangle with the
local population of cephalopods. Dean, who is a native of Oregon, has
seen his share of giant octopus encounters in the waters of Puget
Sound and the Inside Passage. The abundant populations we encounter in
the waters of the reserve amaze him. Occasionally, these big
invertebrates will move up in the clear water above the thermocline to
hunt, but more often we find them lurking in dens in the cold, murky
layer below. By the second week, we stop counting the number of
octopus we have seen, but on any given dive it was not uncommon to
find a half-dozen or more within a relatively small area. Most are in
the 4- to 6-foot range, but several surpass the 10-foot mark.
SUBMERGED SURPRISES
Octopus
encounters may have become almost routine, but other surprises await
us. One day, we round the corner of a submerged cliff and run into a
huge jellyfish that measures at least 8 feet across and trails 20 feet
of tentacles. We congratulate ourselves on this once-in-a-lifetime
find... then we find an even larger one the very next day. A pilot
whale leads us to an offshore pinnacle covered in a checkerboard
pattern of white and black anemones. What we are actually seeing,
Valeri explains, is rival factions of the same species that align by
color and fight for territory. The resulting black and white design is
actually a battlefield. During surface intervals we snorkel with
playful seals, dive for scallops and pick seaweed that the cook
converts into tasty dinner salads. On night dives our fins leave
trails of phosphorescence and Valeri highlights dozens of unusual
species of invertebrate with his dive light. We dive wrecks from the
Soviet era and the time of the Czars, then discover a research vessel
that sank less than a decade ago.
The end of each diving day is the beginning of
another adventure. We ride horses into the hills, explore the
unsettled coastline by four-wheel drive and hike to abandoned Soviet
military installations. Some of our best memories are created at the
lodge where we mix and mingle with Russian divers. A former Special
Forces officer regales us with stories of his service in Afghanistan;
a businessman plays guitar and sings Russian folk songs; Dean upholds
American honor by matching the lodge divemaster shot for shot of local
vodka. All too soon, our time is up. We share a final dinner, relive
our adventures and laugh at our initial misconceptions. I make the
usual promises to return some day, then Dean tops my promise by
offering to return with help. As a representative of the Philippe
Cousteau Foundation, Dean hopes to bring both financial and technical
aid to the rangers and scientists working to protect the reserve from
development and illegal fishing. His offer is met with applause and a
toast. The reserve may never gain the worldwide notoriety of tropical
dive meccas such as Palau or the Cayman Islands, but it is every bit
as special. It is a destination seldom visited, but also one that is
not easily forgotten.
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