Certain of us secretly wanted to make for Nikolaevsk, on the Amur, so we left the Giliak village of Tyk. Initially, sailing straight along the Sakhalin coast was impossible: too shallow. We had to enter the shipping fairway near the mainland's mountainous coast. Toward nightfall, we made for the precipitous, deserted cliffs of Cape Nevelˊskoi. The inaccessible, rocky shore prevented us from disembarking, and we all remained aboard the steamer. Nevelˊskoi unintentionally memorialized himself there. Neither the Frenchman La Pérouse nor the Englishman Broughton nor Kruzenshtern had been able to solve the enigma: Was Sakhalin connected to the mainland by an isthmus, or was it a separate island? Only the Russian sailor Nevelˊskoi, a ceaseless Far Eastern toiler in his day, proved able to resolve this dispute and, despite the senior leadership's wishes, to unite to Russia a new territory.

Lulled by the light swells of Nevelˊskoi Strait (from here north, the Tatar Strait assumes this other name, to honor our discoverer), we lapsed into sweet sleep however we could. Four settled in the stateroom, whereas I found a spot on the engine hood, beneath the open sky. Wrapped in my raincoat, I slept until morning. It's remarkable: you go about for entire days in soaked clothes, boots filled with water— and nothing! You’re fine, not even a runny nose.

Sunlight was barely gilding the tall mountains and, not wasting precious time, we headed further north. We wanted to reach the Giliak village of Uangi, on the Sakhalin coast, but a sandbank and morning fog prevented our reaching this village.

Continually seeking out the fairway and moving from one shore to the other gave me exceptional material for establishing a navigation of the strait, that is, for noting down the dangers of sailing there. For entire days, my notebook never left my hands, as I was either writing notes or drawing pictures of the shoreline.

Looking at a map of Sakhalin, the best place for fugitive convicts to cross from the island to the mainland seems to be the northern cordon of Pogibi, opposite Cape La Pérouse. The width of the strait there is around 9 versts, that is, approximately the distance from Kronshtadt to the Oranienbaum coast. In fact, vagabonds cross there least of all.