Bering's lieutenants were Martin Spangberg and Alexei Tschirikof. With them and the rest of the expedition he left St. Petersburg on the 5th of February, 1725. During that year they got as far as the Ilim, where they wintered. In the spring of 1726 they sailed down the Lena to Yakutsk, where they parted company for a time owing to the difficulties of the route to Ochotsk, the way not being passable in summer with wagons, or in winter with sledges, on account of the marshes and rocky ground. So Spangberg set out, working along the rivers Aldan, Maia, and Judoma, with part of the provisions and heavy naval stores, while Bering followed overland through uninhabited country with more stores on horses, and Tschirikof remained to collect still more and follow in the track of his commander. Bering reached Ochotsk first. Spangberg was frozen up in the Judoma, and thence he walked to Ochotsk with the most necessary materials; but he suffered so much from hunger on the way that he had to support life by eating leather bags, straps, and shoes, and did not reach Bering till the 1st of January, 1727, nearly two years after leaving St. Petersburg. In the beginning of February he returned to the Judoma and brought away about half of his lading, the other half being left for a third journey, which he made from and to Ochotsk on horses. Meanwhile Tschirikof was toiling along from Yakutsk, and did not arrive to complete the party until the 30th of July. On arrival Bering had to build a vessel to take his most necessary naval stores and his shipbuilders across the sea of Ochotsk to Bolscheretzkoi, which, in her, he reached on the 2nd of September. From here he followed the shipwrights, who went on ahead to fell the trees, taking with them the provisions and stores, over the backbone of the isthmus and down the Kamchatka River to the mouth, a distance of some two hundred miles, the journey being very slow on account of the travelling being by dog-sledge. In short, it was not until the 4th of April, 1728, that is, more than three years after leaving St. Petersburg, that it was possible to put on the stocks the vessel in which the voyage to the north was to be made. But she took only three months to build, being launched on the 10th of July, when she was named the _Gabriel_.