His ship had been destroyed by storms as they returned from an expedition that discovered mainland Alaska as well as the Aleutian Islands. The survivors under the command of the Swedish born lieutenant Sven Waxell[7][circular reference] were stranded on the island for 10 months, and managed to survive by killing seals and birds. They were able to build a boat out of their stranded wreck and managed to return to Petropavlovsk on the Kamchatka Peninsula in 1742 with sea otter furs and preserved meat from the newly discovered island.