Day 4 - Belugas and Solovetski Monastry

We got up early, packed up the camp, had breakfast, paddled back to the island for a couple of hours, watching the Belugas before going back to where everything was bundled up on the shore, waiting for the Victoria to collect us.

After a little while, with some communication between the Russians, the Victoria came into view, throttled back and very carefully nosed it's way to a big rock that we could get to with reasonably dry feet and ourselves and our luggage was hoisted aboard and we headed off to Solovetski town.

We were met at the jetty by the hotel vehicle, our luggage was loaded up and we followed the owner via a 'short cut' up to the hotel. We had to take a diversion as the road was being dug up to put in mains water for the people of the area who still have to fetch water from pumps along the street.
The hotel was a collection of wooden buildings with Reception, kitchen and eating facilities and comfortable accommodation in one house, en-suite accommodation with kettles and eating places and a Restaurant which only seemed to open for breakfast.

We settled in and then set off, catching a lift to the monastery, and then walking further along to a restaurant that Dimitri had chosen for lunch. The food was fine but I did get some odd looks because I was in shorts.
After lunch David went off to see if he could find a possible  *gull he had seen earlier, Demetri went back to the hotel to sort out his packing and I walked back to the monastery, with Sabrina first doing some shopping in the 'supermarket', which entailed queueing up and then asking for what you wanted. Definitely 'point and smile' shopping. As I waited a flock of goats wandered through the village and a woman came up the road leading her cow.

 I walked slowly towards the monastery, leaving Sabrina to finish shopping. Some children were jumping into the lake and it was nice to just stand and watch the world go by. We eventually met up again and went into the monastery by a side door. We dashed into the shop as it was about to close, covering my head with a scarf as I went. They have an amazing rack of bells hung on a wooden cradle. Unfortunately we missed them being rung as we were round the other side.

We walked through the grounds of the monastery, which is in the process of being restored, so there was scaffolding in some places, and Sabrina showed us 2 bells that the Russians had taken from a Finnish church and explained that there were moves to get it returned. 

The roof of the monastery was topped with onion domes, made of overlapping wooden tiles and the front entrance was protected by two huge doors, which don't look as if they have been closed in years.

We walked into the building and looked through a door into an incredible room with walls and pillars  which were completely covered in gold. There were lots of religious paintings hung around the room and a priest was intoning in front of a small altar. Not wishing to offend I had a quick look round and then we went back outside.

We met up with Dimitri at the port and helped get his luggage on board before thanking him for a couple of great days and saying our good-byes.

Walking back to the hotel we checked out the water pumps and found a large clump of Bog Arum in one of the roadside streams. At the top of the rise David took me to see some Frog Orchids he had found just up from the hotel turning.

The mosquitos were quite horrendous so we didn't linger before returning to the hotel for dinner tthat again had to be heated up before eating.

Day 3 - Camping and Belugas

Friday, 29th July

DW got up early and explored a nice area close to the hotel and then we were up and ready packed for breakfast in the restaurant at 6.45. rice pudding, pancake and jam, bread, cheese, sausage.

We chatted to a couple of american ladies that we'd met in the port the night before before collecting our bags and taking everything to the dock where our small boat, the Victoria, was waiting. They had to tie up next to another boat so everything had to be passed across the bows of the other boat.

 

The crossing took about an hour at about 35 kph and we saw 2/3 Belugas from about half way across – but distant and difficult to see. We enjoyed views of Arctic skua, guillemot and black guillemot on the way.

The captain headed for the shore and cut the engines making for a bay where it became very shallow, so we came in on a rising tide very slowly to avoid the belugas and to steer round the boulders. The captain put on waders and jumped overboard to manoever the boat so as to make it possible to unload the gear and us in as shallow an area as possible – originally we put on wellies but decided to remove them and go in barefooted as the depth was over the wellies. We climbed along the narrow side deck of the boat and slipped off the bow into calf high water, slowly making our way to shore. The captain brought all our gear ashore and Dimitri collected it and took it up the beach, finally the boat was manhandled back out of the boulders and took off to Solovetski.

The gear then had to be taken from the beach to the camp space – a lovely spot in a small pine wooded area. There was a wooden hut and the site was set up for the research group who may be here today/tomorrow. The toilet was a drop pit about 50 yards away in the forest, and there was a forest shower about 50 yds the other way.

We found several flowers and butterflies including Marsh cinquefoil, small cowheat, chickweed wintergreen, common spotted orchid, a Seapea , with Silver-studded Blue and Painted lady butterflies.

We set up the tents, blew up the mattresses and were ready for an early lunch organised by Dimitri of self grilled hunters sausages on the fire, bread, soup, cake, biscuits water and tea.

I took an afternoon nap while sabrina and DW went for a walk. After I woke up, following a cup of tea we revisited to see the lesser butterfly orchids, dune pansy, silver studded blue, cranberry blue butterfly, spiked speedwell and crane's-bill.

Around 5 we donned aqua-shoes, collected out gear and set off for the island, splashing through calf high water before walking along the beach to the point, avoiding the tern attacks and noting the tern chicks. We could see the Belugas before we got there we then set up our cameras as close to the edge as we could and settled down to enjoy the whales. This pod as about 50 meters off shore and there were several bouts of activity with some quieter spells. The youngsters are born a browny grey and get whiter as they mature. We saw lots of different behaviour including water spitting, rolling, jumping and head/tail waving.

About 8 oclock we had to pack up and leave to avoid getting stranded and returned for a pasta and beef supper before turning in for bed. The midges were a bit of a nightmare but we survived.

Day 2 - To Kem

Day 2 - 28^th June.

We began the day with an 8.30 am breakfast and then a quick check of the feeders where we saw a Red Squirrel, Northern Bullfinch, Siskin, Yellowhammer, a male and juvenile Great Spotted Woodpecker and a Pied Flycatcher in the nestbox.

After an hour's paperwork we set off for the border where we had nearly an  hour in security before calling in for a fuel stop and waiting in a service area for Dimitri, our Russian guide. He eventually turned up blaming the change of an hour, but this was a joke because this part of Kerelia has the same time as Finland. Wandering round the flowery edges we saw mazarine and silver-studded blue, everlasting flower, 2 x wintergreen, 2 x dragonflies. A further stop for money where we checked out common spotted orchids along the roadside verge and an emerald dragonfly.

Driving east we passed forests, boggy areas and placid lakes before a stop for a lunch break at River Nagiors with ham and salad sandwiches with tea and Ronttonen (mashed potato and lingonberry).

There were Black-headed/Common/Baltic gulls, goldeneye, common sandpipers, white wagtails and mallard on lake and river edges. We also found Moorland Clouded Yellow and more silver-studded Blues. The road was quite straight but quite bumpy, with rough surfaces. We stopped for more food at a roadside service area where we had tea with a meatball soup before setting off on the last leg. As we drove we had buzzard, fieldfare and redwing,

We had to stop at a railway crossing for a train that was over a mile long and glancing at the roadside we found early marsh orchid on the roadside which we stopped to check out before trying to catch Dimitri up.

We had a quick stop at a village shop and then carried on, arriving at about 9.0clock (10 to start with, due to time confusion) settled intp our hotel, which was a traditional wooden building with specisal Karelian carvings round the doors and windows.

We had a walk round and a quick look in the small church  built in about 2010 especially for travellers to the Solovetski islands, with merganser, gulls, common tern and oystercatcher before meeting up for dinner at 10.00 which was fried chicken with a rice/peas/corn/pepper salad and cucumber/tomatoes.

27/6 Finland and Russia, getting there.

Having decided to join Sabrina from Taiga Spirit, in Finland, on a trip to the White Sea in Russia we agreed to meet up at 6.00. am for our 10.20 flight to Kajaani via Helsinki. A phone call at 5.45 was David who had lost his car keys and was going to get DC up to bring him up. So a half hour later than planned we set off in my car for Heathrow. The M25 was moving, although slow with lots of stop/start waves for no reason which meant that we made it to the checkin desk with about 2 minutes to,spare. It was a very quick checkin though.
Another slow but moving queue through security and we were in!!
We had a 5 hour wait over in Helsinki so we had a meal and a drink and caught up with some sleep. A message from Sabrina told us to expect a taxi and to let ourselves into her house ready for an 8.30 breakfast and 10.30 exit for Russia.



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