“Aniva Lighthouse and Oyster Bank in One Day” tour package

The first part of the tour is an excursion to Aniva lighthouse.

Aniva lighthouse is on the list of the most popular and visited places on Sakhalin and in Russia.

The lighthouse was built in 1939 on a small rock of Sivuchi, near a hard rocky cape. It is one of the most original and complex technical projects of the Karafuto period, as well as an outstanding world achievement in the practice of lighthouse construction. Unpredictable currents, mixing of the waters of the Sea of Okhotsk and Aniva Bay, fog, rocky shores and frequent ship traffic made it necessary to build this lighthouse. The author of the project is the Japanese engineer Miura Shinobu.

The trip begins in the village of Novikovo (it was named in honor of the legendary cruiser Novik, which fought the Japanese cruiser Tsushima in the Russian-Japanese war on August 20, 1904).

By the way, on the same road you will pass and on our other excursion – to Cape Evstafiya and Turquoise Lakes.

Going out to the sea and passing the abandoned Yuzhnaya outpost, Marble and Mica capes by boat, in one hour and twenty minutes we will reach the goal of our excursion – Aniva lighthouse! We will sail around it. Then we dock and climb the lighthouse. We take in the sights.

On the way back we moor at Marble Cape, where there is a rock formed of marble with quartzite, andesite, opal, chalcedony and other semi-precious stones.

You can learn more about the excursion to the Aniva Lighthouse at the regional tourism portal gosakhalin.ru.

The second part of the tour – the oyster bank on the Busse lake

This is one of the most unique places on our island, named in honor of the chief of the Muravyeski post N.V. Busse. Lake Busse is a lagoon-shaped bay located in the northeastern part of Aniva Bay and is a state monument of regional importance.

The lake is nine kilometers long, seven kilometers wide and has a maximum depth of four and a half meters. Lake Busse is connected to the sea by the Suslova Strait and in the northern part by the Arakul Channel with the lakes Bolshoye Vavayskoye, Bolshoye Chibisanskoye and Maloye Chibisanskoye. As the daily tidal currents through the strait bring huge masses of water from the sea, the water in the lake is salty and marine.

The lake is inhabited by a large number of mollusks – the Far Eastern trepang (sea cucumber), Pacific oyster, sea scallop, mussel, grass shrimp (chilim), hair crab, hermit crab, trumpet crab, rapan, sea urchin and many others. The lake has stocks of anfeltia algae (from which agar-agar is extracted).

Among the fish in the lake there are flounder, smelt, kundzha, burbot, saffron cod, herring, terpug, redfish. During the spawning season, large numbers of Pacific salmon – coho, pink and chum – migrate through the lake to freshwater areas.

199 species of birds (36 species are listed in the Red Books of different ranks) are registered on the territory of Lake Busse. Among the rare birds listed in the Red Book of the Russian Federation, osprey (1-2 pairs), white-tailed sea eagle (1-2 pairs) nest on the shores of the lagoon.

• Visit the port city of Korsakov
• See Russia’s first liquefied natural gas plant (Sakhalin 2 project)
• Visit a bird market  
• Stop at the Marble Cape and walk on the marble stones
• See dolphins, killer whales and seals
• See a pillbox built by the Japanese.
• See one of the most unique places – Busse Lake (lagoon)
• Visit an oyster bank and see how big Sakhalin oysters live in their natural environment.
• See a sea urchin
• Taste the freshest, healthiest and tastiest Sakhalin seafood prepared by our instructor
• Drive along the picturesque Sakhalin coast
• We appreciate the ecology of Lake Busse, as it is a specially protected natural area. The visit to the oyster bank is for familiarization purposes.