Hanseatic Inspiration, INT Kamchatka & Kuril Is ex Otaru Return – 15 Jun 2022

16 Night Cruise sailing from Otaru roundtrip aboard Hanseatic Inspiration.

Close to creation in the Far East: far from the everyday, experience the drama and beauty of the Pacific Ring of Fire on the HANSEATIC inspiration.

Highlights of this cruise:

Otaru
Otaru is a city and port in Shiribeshi, Hokkaidō, Japan, northwest of Sapporo. The city faces the Ishikari Bay, and has long served as the main port of the bay. With its many historical buildings, Otaru is a popular tourist destination.

Otaru Canal is the symbol of this city. The gaslights and stone warehouses along the canal producing a beautiful nightscape popular with young couples. There are many cafes, museums, restaurants & shops as well as the brewery restaurant belonging to Otaru Beer. Painters and other artists set up their easels etc.

Korsakov
Korsakov is a port town in Sakhalin Oblast, Russia. It is the administrative center of Korsakovsky District. The town is located some 42 kilometers (26 mi) south from Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk, at the southern end of Sakhalin Island, on the coast of the Salmon Cove (bukhta lososei) in the Aniva Bay.

There are very little in the way of sights in Korsakov. But there is a great view over the harbor, along with a monument, on the hill just behind the sea terminal. The main street, Sovetskaya street is lined with small street stalls during spring and summer months, selling fresh fruits and vegetables.

Petropavlovsk
Petropavlovsk is the capital and largest city on Russia’s Kamchatka Peninsula and the second largest city in the world that is unreachable by road. It is a port city on the Avacha Bay surrounded by high, snow-capped mountains and volcanoes.

Some of the main attractions in Petropavlovsk include the Lenin Square, the Naberezhnaya Embankment, the Vitrus Bering Monument and Museum, the Museum of Regional Studies, Museum of Volcanoes, Monument to Charles Clark, Monument to La Perouse, Memorial Complex on Nikolskaya Hill, The Chapel and the Monument to the Heroes of Lt. A. Maksutov’s Battery. The city also has a variety of shops, stores, restaurants and cafes.

A tour of the Valley of the Geysers is interesting, showing bubbling water, steam and the odd grumble every so often. A boat ride to Avachinskaya Bay to explore the coastline and enjoy the local cuisine onshore is also a great adventure. Surrounding landscapes are filled with an amazing selection of wildlife and birds that are unique to this region.

Atlasova
Atlasov Island, known in Japanese as Araido is the northernmost island and volcano and also the highest volcano of the Kuril islands, part of the Sakhalin Oblast in Russia. It is essentially the cone of a submarine volcano called Vulkan Alaid protruding above the Sea of Okhotsk to a height of 2,339 m (7,672 ft), and is currently uninhabited.

Atlasova island has been praised by the Japanese in haiku, wood-block prints, and other forms, in much the same way as the better-known Mt. Fuji.

Yankicha
Tiny Yankicha island is the emergent tip of an extinct volcano, located in the Kuril islands of Japan. The steep-walled caldera is broken to the south and so is flooded by the sea. It forms a tranquil lagoon where harlequins and sea otters swim. The island is considered to be one of the most visually scenic of the Kuril islands.

A highlight of a visit to Yankicha island lagoon is the hydrothermal field with steaming fumaroles, sulfur crystals, hot springs and boiling puddles. No other natural hot spring bath could have a more spectacular setting. The inner grassy slopes of the lagoon rise to the rocky rim where fulmars nest and the cliffs are covered with kittiwakes. This is also the nesting grounds for crested auklets, and common and thick-billed murres make their home in the ledges of the vertical cliffs.