Since we were anchored about 1 1/2 miles off shore today, it was necessary to tender. Since we are 5 star mariners, we were able to get a #1 tender ticket after getting our passports. Those on independent shore excursions had their passports examined by the Russian authorities first.
Our independent tour group assembled on deck 8 in the atrium, and soon we were escorted down a crew elevator to deck 3 where we boarded a tender. It was about 1/2 hour ride to shore where we disembarked onto a floating barge and then climbed ashore to a gravel area where we met our guide, Sergey, a younger mid 30's redheaded guy.
We boarded an older white Hyundai van with barely enough seats and I ended up sitting in one in the front with my knees almost to my chest. The shock absorbers were shot and the engine was barely powerful enough to get us up even minor hills. The port area was pretty tired appearing with a shimmer of color on the welcome sign to the port. Since there wasn't much to see in Korsakov, we drove about 40 minutes north to Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk which is the regional capital of the area.
Once there, we visited St. Nicholas church which is a log cabin type structure on nicely manicured grounds. A service was already in progress, so we had a brief wait before we could visit the interior which was gorgeous. When the church opened for visiting, a short helpful Russian fellow associated with the church announced in absolutely perfect English, "May I show you around?" I was a bit taken aback, and asked him, "Where did you learn your perfect English?" Without batting an eye, he said, "Spy School" to which I immediately responded, "I flunked Russian in spy school." It was a fun interchange.
From there we visited the 4 year old Russian Orthodox Cathedral with its beautiful good and blue spires. Right next door was Victory square with a couple of artillery pieces and a tank standing guard in front of the new museum. Nearby we visited the regional museum which is housed in one of the few remaining Japanese style buildings. From there we went to the gondola which took us to the top of the ski hill and a chance to view the city. It's a two stage gondola and each car holds 8 people.
Lunch was served at a little cafeteria and was quite good with soup and a salad. Afterwards we headed back to the port but along the way we stopped at a mall for souvenirs and at a deer farm to photograph the deer. At the port city we drove around and noted how run down it generally was. Lenin Square was in good repair with lots people relaxing and enjoying their Saturday. Our last stop was to visit a viewpoint above the harbor. While there, a fairly new Cadillac limo pulled up with a wedding party inside. The bride and groom affixed a lock to the railing and then facing away from the cliff, the bride threw the keys to the lock over her shoulder and over the cliff. While the wedding party was reboarding the limousine, a couple of the inebriated guys came over and spoke in animated Russian how they liked Americans ( our guide translated). They asked if we liked Russians and my response was, "Why are we spending money to visit your country?" They then clumsily reentered the limousine and it drove away.
We were on the next to last tender and then we hustled to change and make a reservation we thought we had at 5:30pm at the Pinnacle Grill. At the Pinnacle Grill they didn't have a reservation for us for the Sel de Mer night, but there was room for us. The appetizer we had was positively terrible. It was the seafood trio and had great presentation, but the crab was hard to crack with the tools presented us, tough and leathery, the oysters were flat and sticking to the shell. It was not worth the $22 supplement. The rest of the dinner was fine and we were able to make the 7:30pm show featuring Tomono Kawamura, a classical pianist. Evening Insight featured Joe Holliday speaking on ocean productivity.
The Orange party was held at 10pm but I didn't participate as I needed to make final preparations for leading the Inter-denominational service the following morning. Our clocks were set back 2 hours in order tto to sync with our next port in Japan.
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