Pacific North Current

South of the Aleutian chain, the North Pacific opens into a broad and stormy sea. In 1741 a Russian expedition under Vitus Bering and Aleksei Chirikov sailed east from Kamchatka to seek the American coast. Its ships separated in bad weather. Bering's westward return was beset by storms and sickness, and his vessel finally came ashore on an island near Kamchatka, where the survivors spent the winter.