The C.H. Holmes, becalmed in the Bering Sea. is shown off St Lawrence Island. Named after the explorer, Vitus Bering, his explorations in the mid-1700's discovered the fur-seal wealth of the Bering sea.

Lying between the Arctic Ocean and the North Pacific Ocean, the world's third-largest semi-enclosed sea, the Bering Sea has properties of each and is influenced by both. It is neither truly polar nor typically north temperate in character. Most of its wide eastern shelf is extremely shallow, in many places less than 60 meters in depth, whereas the basin exceeds 3,000 meters in depth. About half of the Bering Sea is underlain by continental shelf, and the other half is a deep basin. Several huge undersea canyons run up from the basin onto the shelf. The Sea remains one of the most productive marine areas in the world in spite of the extensive fishing that has gone on for over 200 years.

The image of calmness seen in this picture is in stark contrast with the stormy and often spectacular reality of the Bering Sea.