The harbor at Okhotsk is ice-free from May to November but the sailing season is only four months, from June through September.

The town is built on a low narrow spit blocking the mouths of the two rivers.

The harbor inside the spit is large, but three quarters of it is a mud flat during low water.

Large ships can only cross the bar on an incoming or outgoing high tide and sailing ships sometimes have to wait for days for the wind to blow in the right direction.

Ice-choked water during the spring breakup frequently floods the town (twenty times from 1723 to 1813), as does high surf on a number of occasions.

The Okhota, its mouth jammed by ice in 1810, had cut a new channel through the spit and isolates the town site.

The town is moved in 1815 to the spit east of the harbor mouth.

Goods now have to be unloaded and barged across the harbor.

Because the harbor is shallow, Yakuts have to wade with loads from shore to barge.

Fresh water has to be fetched from two and a half miles away.

Goods cannot be brought down along the Kukhtui River because of swamps.