"The edge of the Earth. Where is it?" - this question has probably been asked by every person. And everyone had their own answer. In my distant childhood, I really liked the song about Sakhalin, which had the following words: "And I throw pebbles from the steep bank of the distant La Perouse Strait." I imagined steep cliffs, an endless sea, and for me, this place was the imaginary edge of the Earth.
This is where I really wanted to go. And now, many years later, I am flying to Sakhalin hoping to see this mysterious La Perouse Strait. The weather forecast was good, and I was in a great mood. However, when the plane began to descend, there was solid cloud cover below us, and the hills around the Khomutovo airport in Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk emerged from the clouds just before landing. It was raining. The girls from the Ministry of Tourism and Sports who met me at the airport told me that the forecast had deteriorated sharply, and our helicopter filming was postponed. The trip was planned for a week, so I was not too worried. I had time to leisurely stroll around the city, go to the Museum of Local History, located in a Japanese building built in the traditional national style, and try Japanese cuisine, which turned out to be incredibly delicious.
One of the main attractions of Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk is rightfully considered the ski resort "Gorny Vozdukh". Almost six months a year, skiers from all over Russia come to its slopes, and in the summer you can take the cable car to the upper station, breathe in the purest mountain air and wander along numerous forest paths, which I did with pleasure.
The days passed, and although the rain stopped, low clouds prevented the first flight. The situation became more and more tense. And then, when there were less than two days left before my return, the sun came out over Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk. The equipment was already assembled and ready, short negotiations with the helicopter pilots - and here I was already flying in the rays of the evening sun towards Mount Shpamberg and the unique high-mountain lakes located near its summit. After five days of rain, nature gave a fantastically beautiful light. Large clouds sparkled in the sun, reflected in the mirror-like surface of the high-mountain lakes, plush hills covered with still green trees floated under the helicopter. How beautiful it must be here in autumn!
It remained to hope that the weather would not deteriorate, and the next day there would be a flight to Moneron Island, the first marine natural park in Russia, which is rightfully considered one of the pearls of the Sakhalin Region. Getting there is not easy, it is a border zone, so it is necessary to obtain permission from the FSO to visit and separately for filming.
The morning greeted us with complete calm, all the permits had been waiting in the backpack for a long time, and here we are already flying over the pink expanse of water. Moneron Island, located in the Tatar Strait 43 kilometers from Sakhalin, is a tiny dot on the map - its area is only about 30 square kilometers. However, there is a whole world on it: two rivers, waterfalls, emerald hills, columnar rocks, grottoes with colored walls, seals and sea lions in absolutely unreal transparent turquoise water. Moneron is under the influence of the warm Tsushima Current, so the water is not only transparent, but also very warm - a real paradise for divers. In 2008, a tourist complex was opened on the island, and divers became its most frequent visitors.
It's easy to fall in love with Moneron at first sight. Green hills, pristine bays, beautiful cliffs - I was lucky enough to see all this beauty from a bird's eye view. Unfortunately, there is no helicopter fuel on the island, so the duration of aerial filming was severely limited, but I was not discouraged. The park staff organized a boat tour around the island. Warm weather, calm sea, sea lions and seals basking in the sun, majestic cliffs and grottoes, the cries of seagulls and cormorants - this day was definitely the best on my trip to Sakhalin.
Moneron revealed its beauty to me, but I had not yet seen the “edge of the Earth,” the steep Sakhalin coast at the La Perouse Strait, and there was only one morning left. When the helicopter stood in thick fog at six in the morning, I was afraid that the flight would not take place. But everything worked out: we took off and an hour later we were approaching Cape Aniva, the southernmost point of Sakhalin Island. The “edge of the Earth” turned out to be exactly as I had seen it in my imagination — hard to reach and rocky, and the magnificent landscape in reality was complemented by a lighthouse built in 1939 and, unfortunately, no longer in operation.
On our way back we flew along the coast of the Sea of Okhotsk. The eastern coast of southern Sakhalin made a strong impression on me: Cape Aniva, Lake Ptichye, the cliffs at Cape Velikan - you can see all these sights in our panoramas.
We would like to express our gratitude to the Ministry of Tourism and Sports of the Sakhalin Region and personally to Anton Vladimirovich Zaitsev for organizing the photo shoot.
Source: travel.ru