Tikhaya Bay means quiet bay, and the name is a promise that a good many sheltered coves along the Russian Far East try to keep. This one lies in the middle of Sakhalin, an island about nine hundred kilometres long, where long mountain ridges run from north to south and the coast is a mixture of cliffs, boulder beaches and river mouths. There is no town recorded nearby, and the nearest sizeable places are a long way off, so what follows is a picture of the country around it rather than of a particular building or jetty.
The riding in this part of Sakhalin is wild and often rough. Roads leave the main highway on tracks of gravel and mud, crossing streams and climbing short steep rises, and a few kilometres can take much longer than you expect. Conditions vary with the weather: rain turns clay to grease, fog drifts in without warning, and the wind off the sea is cool even in July. A light bike, spare fuel and a decent repair kit are sensible, and so is telling somebody where you are going. Late July to early September is the most reliable period.
You will not find fuel, a shop or a cafe at the bay, so everything comes from a town before the turn-off. Water is available from the streams, but treat it before drinking. Plan the whole day around that, because there is nowhere to buy anything once you leave the highway.
The nature is the reward. Sakhalin's forests are dense with Sakhalin fir and Ezo spruce, and the undergrowth is thick with dwarf bamboo that can grow taller than a man. Brown bears are common and fish well when the salmon run in late summer and autumn, so keep noise up in the woods and food well stored. The coast is rich in birds, and offshore, seals and sometimes whales can be spotted in calm weather. In the evening, the sea turns silver, the cliffs go dark and the only sound is the surf, which is exactly what the name promises.