We finally depart the Kuril Islands and head north towards the Kamchatka Peninsula.

Petropavlovsk-Kamchatskiy to give it its full official name is the capital (and just about the only) city of Kamchatka. The city was named for the two ships, St Peter and St Paul which made up Vitus Bering's second voyage of exploration from Kamchatka trying to reach Alaska in 1741. On the side of Avacha Bay ringed by volcanoes, many still very active, Petropavlovsk (or PK as it's apparently known) must be up there among the most scenically situated cities on the planet. But it's all downhill from there! Very isolated, 9 hours flying time east of Moscow, few roads and with a population now around 170,000, way down from its peak, mostly involved in fishing and the fish processing industry. Salmon is king in these parts - all varieties but at this time of year, King salmon is really king! And "red caviar", salmon roe is a particular local favourite (ours too...!!) and is for sale everywhere. There's an obvious attempt to encourage tourism - the peninsula is one of the most active regions on the "Ring of Fire", but with limited flights in, a very short summer and the challenges involved in getting a Russian visa the tourism industry faces a bit of an uphill battle. As far as I saw, there is only one hotel in the city, but the adjacent restaurant was pretty decent and some local indigenous people put on one of the best cultural shows we've seen anywhere

After leaving Petropavlovsk we sail north up the eastern coast of the Kamchatka Peninsula and drop anchor at the mouth of the Zhupanova River. When we'd sailed into Avacha Bay the previous morning, the sun had finally come out. But it gets better! Our five hour early morning zodiac cruise up into the Zhupanova River was in the best weather possible - warm sunshine and no wind. One of our expedition leaders tells us that this was only the third time in almost 25 years he'd been coming here that he'd experienced such perfect conditions. Somebody claimed to see a couple of bears on the river bank, but in very dense forests and undergrowth, I'm thinking that's more wishful thinking than an actual sighting! What we do see though are Steller sea eagles - depending on how you measure considered to be the world's largest raptors. Maybe not the longest - they have relatively short tail feathers, but certainly the heaviest. And the females are bigger than the males which allows them collect more food for their chicks.

Bering Island, one of the Komondor Island group at the extreme western end of the Aleutian Island chain is our next stop around a day's sailing east of Kamchatka.

A few words about Vitus Bering for whom the island (and the Bering Sea) is named. Bering was a Danish sea captain and explorer who sold his services to the Russian Tsar Peter the Great. He led the first Kamchatka expedition in the 1720's the aim of which was to determine whether a land bridge existed between Asia and North America. On this expedition, Bering decided that there was no land bridge, but then he never actually spotted North America. His second expedition with two ships, the St Peter and St Paul set out in 1741. The St Paul disappeared in the fog and was never seen again. The St Peter with Bering on board made it as far as Kodiak Island. Some of his crew disembarked on a nearby island but Bering who by now was very sick, quite possibly with scurvy took some convincing that they'd actually reached North America. The St Peter turned for home, but in the winter of 1741 it was shipwrecked on the island now known as Bering Island. Bering and several members of his crew died on the island and were buried in shallow graves. The remaining crew survived the winter thanks it's now thought to being able to catch massive (now extinct) Steller sea cows each of which provided sustenance for a month. They were able to construct an new ship from the wreck of the St Peter and in 1742 returned to Kamchatka.

The whereabouts of Bering's remains stayed a mystery until around 1990. A grave site was discovered which on further investigation and DNA testing was proven to contain the remains of Bering and his crew who had died together with him back in 1741. The remains were reburied in properly marked grave.

We'd finally found our Berings....!!