12/14/2023 0 Comments Russian submarine basesWe are going to be here for most of the day, so I have plenty of time for exploring. This is great because we can easily get on and off the ship without having to use the Zodiacs. Only one dock is still floating and Odyssey ties up to it. When this was an active sub base about 3,000 lived here.) There were three floating sub docks for the submarines to tie up to. (Sergey tells me the Russian Navy built this in 1987, then abandoned it in 1994. The submarines and people are all gone, but the buildings are still here. On the west side of the caldera I can see the secret sub base. Sergey call us on his radio that everything is OK and the captain slowly and carefully brings Odyssey through narrow channel and into the caldera. If there is thick fog, or it is night or if there are choppy seas our captain will not risk getting our ship into Broutona Bay.Īs we approach they narrow channel the captain sends out Sergey in a Zodiac to check the channel to make sure everything is OK. Our captain will have to be very careful when he tries to get into the caldera. Odyssey is 51 feet (17 meters) wide goes down about 18 feet (6 meters) underwater. The channel is not very deep (about 28 ft/9 meters) or wide (about 100 ft/33 meters). It looks like it will be a prefect day for getting inside the caldera to explore the sub base! Our Russian host, Sergey, tells me that the Russian Navy used explosives to make a channel into the caldera for the submarines to get in and out. I looks like we will have sunshine today! The seas are fairly calm and there is only a light breeze. The Russians must have read that book, because they made this caldera a secret base for some of their submarines!Īs Odyssey approaches Simushir Island I can see the island is covered with clouds, but the clouds are clearing. If you have read the book " 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea" by Jules Verne, this is like the secret hideout that Captain Nemo had for his submarine, Natilus. This huge caldera may be a little older than the Yankich caldera. This caldera, called Broutona (Brew-tone-a) Bay, is over 2 miles (3.2 kilometers) across! Unlike Yankich the Simushir volcano is not active, it is extinct. On the north end it has large volcanic caldera, like Yankich Island, but a lot bigger. Simushir Island was made by a chain of volcanoes. I can see the north end of a long (over 30 mi/48 km) and skinny (about 3 mi/4.8 km) island, called Simushir (Sim-uh-shir) Island. If the conditions are good we will be visiting a secret Russian submarine base! We are 35 miles (56 kilometers) south of Yankich Island. When I was here with Russian scientists in 1992, they never told me about this place. Today I am hoping to explore a place that I never knew existed. Location: Kuril Islands - Simushir Island The Russian Kuril Islands Expedition - A Secret Sub Base!
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