Editing Vitus Bering (section)

====Okhotsk to Kamchatka and beyond====
The ''Vostok'' was readied and the ''Fortuna'' built at a rapid pace, with the first party (48 men commanded by Spanberg and comprising those required to start work on the ships that would have to be built in Kamchatka itself as soon as possible) leaving in June 1727. Chirikov himself arrived in Okhotsk soon after, bringing further supplies of food. He had had a relatively easy trip, losing none of his men and only 17 of the 140 horses he had set out with. On 22 August, the remainder of the party sailed for Kamchatka.<ref name="frost44"/> Had the route been charted, they should have sailed around the peninsula and made port on its eastern coast; instead, they landed on the west and made a gruelling trip from the settlement of Bolsheretsk in the South-West, north to the [[Upper Kamchatka Post]] and then east along the [[Kamchatka River]] to the [[Lower Kamchatka Post]]. This Spanberg's party did before the river froze; next, a party led by Bering completed this final stint of approximately 580 miles over land without the benefit of the river; and finally, in the spring of 1728, the last party to leave Bolsheretsk, headed by Chirikov, reached the Lower Kamchatka Post. The outpost was six thousand miles from St. Petersburg and the journey itself (the first time "so many [had] gone so far") had taken some three years.<ref name="frost44"/> The lack of immediate food available to Spanberg's advance party slowed their progress, which hastened dramatically after Bering's and Chirikov's group arrived with provisions. As a consequence, the ship they constructed{{mdash}}the ''St. Gabriel'' ({{lang|ru|Святой Гавриил}}, ''Sviatoi Gavriil''){{mdash}}was ready to be launched as soon as 9 June 1728 from its construction point upriver at [[Ushka]]. It was then fully rigged and provisioned by 9 July, and on 13 July set sail downstream, anchoring offshore that evening. On 14 July, Bering's party began their first exploration, hugging the coast in not a northerly direction (as they had expected) but a north-easterly one. The ship's log records a variety of landmarks spotted (including [[St. Lawrence Island]]) many of which the expedition took the opportunity to name. Translation problems hindered the exploration attempt, however, as Bering was unable to discuss the local geography with locals he encountered. Sailing further north, Bering entered for the first time the strait that would later bear his name.<ref name="frost48">{{harvnb|Frost|2003|pp=48–55}}</ref>

Reaching a cape (which Chirikov named [[Cape Chukotsky]]), the land turned westwards, and Bering asked his two lieutenants on 13 August 1728 whether or not they could reasonably claim it was turning westwards for good: that is to say, whether they had proven that Asia and America were separate land masses. The rapidly advancing ice prompted Bering to make the controversial decision not to deviate from his remit: the ship would sail for a few more days, but then turn back.<ref name="frost48"/> The expedition was neither at the most easterly point of Asia (as Bering had supposed) nor had it succeeded in discovering the Alaskan coast of America, which on a clear day would have been visible to the east.<ref name="armstrong161"/><ref name="frost48"/> As promised, on 16 August, Bering turned the ''St. Gabriel'' around, heading back towards Kamchatka. Not before a storm forced hasty repairs, the ship was back at the mouth of the Kamchatka River, fifty days after it had left. The mission was at its conclusion, but the party still needed to make it back to St. Petersburg to document the voyage (thus avoiding the fate of [[Semyon Dezhnyov]] who, unbeknownst to Bering, had made a similar expedition eighty years previously).<ref name="frost56">{{harvnb|Frost|2003|pp=56–62}}</ref> In the spring of 1729, the ''Fortuna'', which had sailed round the Kamchatka Peninsula to bring supplies to the Lower Kamchatka Post, now returned to Bolsheretsk; and shortly after, so did the ''St. Gabriel''. The delay was caused by a four-day journey Bering had embarked upon directly eastwards in search of North America, to no avail. By July 1729 the two vessels were back at Okhotsk, where they were moored alongside the ''Vostok''; the party, no longer needing to carry shipbuilding materials made good time on the return journey from Okhotsk, and by 28 February 1730 Bering was back in the Russian capital. In December 1731 he would be awarded 1000 roubles and promoted to captain-commander, his first noble rank (Spanberg and Chirikov were similarly promoted to captain). It had been a long and expensive expedition, costing 15 men and souring relations between Russia and her native peoples: but it had provided useful new (though not perfect) insights into the geography of Eastern Siberia, and presented useful evidence that Asia and North America were separated by sea.<ref name="frost56"/> Bering had not, however, proved the separation beyond doubt.<ref name="armstrong161"/>