Sept 7, on our way to an afternoon arrival in Lavrova Bay, a brown bear was spotted on a beach and the ship was stopped so zodiacs could take people for an up close look. I viewed the bear from the deck with binoculars while Pat took the camera on a zodiac ride and got some good close photos. Lavrova Bay is the site of a former Soviet era fish processing plant that once housed 10,000 workers. It wasn’t economically viable and was closed down about 25 years ago after the fall of the Soviet Union. The abandoned buildings are still there but mostly fallen down. We walked around the area looking at plant life and the remains of the plant. On the beach we spotted bear footprints in the sand, but they looked to be a day or two old. There was an old shipwreck fishing boat on the shore that we passed close to on our way back to the ship. The wreck supposedly happened as the 3 captains were arguing, probably inspired by too much vodka. The weather has improved and it was only partly cloudy and 55 degrees temperature.
Sept 8 had a new destination added to the itinerary on recommendation of our sister ship which had recently visited the village. The village of Tymlat on the Tymlat River was established in the mid-19th century as a trading post. The population of around 500 is 70% native Koryak which is ethnically related to our Inuits. They fish for salmon, cod, herring, marine mammals and hunt for reindeer. We had a 2 mile zodiac ride up the river to the village and were individually greeted with ritual greeting ceremony. It was a sunny day with shirtsleeve temperatures. The villagers had some fresh caught salmon and demonstrated the traditional way of filleting it and taking the roe and wrapping it with grass to be preserved. The State Koryak folk ensemble, “Mengo,” is a renowned cultural group. Dressed in handmade deerskin dresses the women & girls put on an extensive folkloric show of dances & songs. There were tables of local food for us to try including wild berries, smoked salmon, salmon roe fire roasted harbor seal, small pinecones filled with delicious pine nuts and some jams made from the wild berries & cloud berries. After the show, which went on for 1 ½ hours, we were served salmon soup, made over wood fires during the show and it was delicious. We walked into the village whose buildings were all made of weathered and unpainted wood and whose streets were cinder. Most houses had vegetable gardens in their yards. When we returned to the ship, the tide was coming in quite fast creating large breakers at the mouth. The zodiacs had to accelerate to climb the breakers and, on one, we were completely airborne. Our team of 3 won Liar's Club.