310 JOURNAL OF THE "ST. PAUL" 



October 7, 1741 



Latitude 53° 12'; from Vaua, longitude 9° 32' W, rhumb N86°54'W, 

 distance 352 knots. 



At the fifth hour in the afternoon Vasili Nizhegorodok of Yakutsk, the 

 servant of Lieutenant Plautin, died of scurvy, and we lowered the 

 body into the sea. At end of the tenth hour Lieutenant Chikhachev died 

 of scurvy. 



October 8, 1741 



Latitude 52 37'; from Vaua, longitude n° 04' 1" W, rhumb S85°07'W, 

 distance 399.4 knots. 



Navigator Vrange and Lieutenant Michael Plautin died of scurvy in 

 the third hour of the afternoon. At the seventh hour in the morning we 

 sighted land — high, snow-covered mountains. According to our opinion 

 and according to the position of the land it must be the shore running 

 north from Isopa to Vaua. 24 Owing, however, to the mist we could not 

 see very distinctly. 



At noon we were certain that the land in sight was Shipunski Cape 

 bearing NNEJ^E; Avacha, or Burning, Volcano bore NW by N^W, 

 Vilyuchensk Volcano W by N^W; the land ended to the S and SW by 

 W; Vaua could not be seen owing to the mist. 



October o, 1741 



Latitude 52 57'; from Vaua, longitude 1 1° 39' 4" W, rhumb N89°27'W, 

 distance 422 knots. 



At the sixth hour we sighted Vaua; but, owing to the head wind and the 

 coming on of night, we could not enter the bay and therefore put out to 

 sea. At noon the wind was very light, and the fog cleared a bit, and 

 Vaua stood out, bearing according to compass W by N, distant about 10 

 knots. 



October 10, 1741 



At the fifth hour in the afternoon the wind from N increased a little, 

 and we sailed WNW into the mouth of the bay. 



At the eighth hour noticed a light on Vaua lighthouse. 



At the ninth hour we safely passed Vaua and entered the mouth of 

 Avacha Bay, where we anchored in seven fathoms. 



At the seventh hour we fired five guns as a signal for small boats to 

 come out. 



At the ninth hour Ensign Levashev came out and told us that Captain 

 Commander Bering on the St. Peter had not yet returned, that the galliot 

 Okhotsk, in command of Assistant Navigator Andrei Sheganov, had 



24 It was not the coast south of Vaua but north of it that was sighted, as was 

 soon realized, as the first sentence of the next paragraph shows. 



