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Avacha Bay on the Kamchatka Peninsula is the second largest bay in the world after the Port Jackson in Australia. The bay has a beautiful view of the Koryak, Avachinsky and Vilyuchinsky volcanoes. The length of the bay is 24 kilometers, its depth is up to 26 meters, with a total area of about 215 square kilometers. The bay is the main gateway for arriving people and goods. There are many wonderful caverns in the rocky cliffs around it, that can be reached only by canoe. The coast of the bay is indented by numerous small bays. On its northern shore is located the city of Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky. At the entrance of the bay there are rocks named "Three brothers", they have become a symbol of the bay and of the Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky city. According to legend, in ancient times, three youngsters of one of the tribes that lived on the shores of the Avacha Bay, decided to protect their people from the mighty ocean waves. The brothers stood at the entrance of the bay and used their bodies as a shield from the tsunami. So they are still standing there, meeting the entering the bay ships. Not far from the brothers a small rocky island Starichkov rises out of the water, it has the status of monument of nature and it almost entirely is occupied by bird colonies. More than 50 thousand of tufted puffins, black-legged kittiwakes, cormorants and gulls hatch chicks here annually. Each year a couple of Steller's sea eagles, rare birds listed in the Red Book of Russia, hatch chicks on the island. The reefs around the island were chosen by seals and sea otters.
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