KAMCHATKA Part 2

The MI8 helicopter is huge but our 10 or so Peli cases are dwarfed by piles of camping, rafting and cooking equipment for 14 people and six days on the river. There are also six kayaks and a fair bit of fishing gear. Eventually everything goes is in and the loading doors are closed. Brian sticks the Go Pro to the undercarriage.

In case anyone is interested the gear list is -

Sony PDW-700 HD XD camera - we’ve shot the whole series on this as it records to HD XD disks it doesn’t have traditional heads like a tape camera. It’s less susceptible to dust, sand and humidity problems - all of which are a constant problem on these shoots. Touch wood (there are still 3 shoots left to go), we haven’t had a single dropout or recording problem in hundreds of hours of footage.

Sachtler 18 tripod
6X IDX batteries/charger
2X Lectrosonic Radio Mics
1X Sennheiser 416 boom
2X LitePannels Mini lights
EX1
Gates Underwater Housing for EX1
Super wide angle, wide angle and macro ports for Gates housing.
2X Underwater LED lights
Go Pro
Mac Book Pro for media wrangling.
2X Lacie Rugged HD’s.
Canon 5DMkII
Everything is in Peli cases and we also have piles of dry bags and tarps.
Large bag of diving/wet gear - weight belts, wetsuit, mask and snorkel etc.

Our host Zeb also has a 5DMkII and an underwater housing for it.

Brian, Rob, Ethan, Jay, Shane and Jeff (AKA ‘The Kayakers’) have their own EX1 which we’re using as a second camera for time lapses and extra coverage and about 4 DSLRs between them. Brian also has a mini dolly which is cool for adding a bit of movement to the time lapses.

The Russian guides have a generator so we can charge the batteries.

The mountain of kit in the helicopter has spilled into the seating area so we all pile in and perch on the foothills of Kit mountain. We’re so overloaded that they won’t let me have the door open so I have to shoot out of the window. It opens all the way and wouldn’t have been too bad if I hadn’t been sitting on our bear dog the whole way. Kind of like a living, less stable Cine Saddle.

As ever I’m watching our trip into the wilderness in black and white, wishing it was smoother and getting cross with the poor dog but it’s impossible not to notice how amazing this place is. From the air you can clearly see how untouched the place is. There are thousands of rivers, the vegetation is lush and green and skyline is volcano after volcano.

We touch down on a small stoney beach by the Zhupanova river. We do a little meet and great with Ryan the fishing guide (he was on the helicopter with us but we’re cheating that he was waiting for us in the bush). Again it’s all a bit of a rush as the helicopter needs to leave and I wish I’d done it again in close up but we didn’t, never mind.

They kayakers and Russians get all the kit out while I go and set up for a shot of it taking back off. Even though I get about 100 meters away there’s a hurricane of down draught from the huge rota blades and the hard beach doesn’t dissipate the wind. The camera gets blown about and the pola filter I’ve got in gets grit blasted. Good job I had it in or it would have been the lens.

We’re now officially in the middle of no where. This is deemed an apt time to mention that as we were so overloaded all the drinking water was left behind. It’s going to be a thirsty week.

It’s mid afternoon and we set off down the river on three rafts and six kayaks. We’re mainly fly fishing but the kayakers have a couple of spinning rods too. Kamchatka is the only place in the world that all six species of Pacific salmon go to spawn and it’s the second biggest salmon run in the world. We find out pretty quickly that there are also huge rainbow trout here too.

We camp on a pebble beach and the Russians knock up some hearty food. Jay breaks out the wet bar, vodka, vodka or vodka and grapefruit.


It’s late by the time we set up camp and I only manage to get one cycle of 4 batteries charged before 1am. I have one battery I hadn’t used from the day so the next day I will only have 5 batteries to shoot from sunrise to sunset at about 10pm. The IDX batteries aren’t lasting as long as I think they should so this is a bit of a problem.

The water situation is resolved by boiling river water in a big pan. This take ages to boil, ages to cool down and tastes of whatever was last in the pan. Usually fish heads. There are loads of clean looking spring fed tributaries to the river so I fill my water bottle from them most of the time.

We are back on the water by 9am the next day. Ryan catches a large rainbow trout and we do our usual talk about the fish with Zeb, Ryan and me all sitting in the water. I have a new waterproof pouch which fits a battery and a disk perfectly. After the chat I discover that my new water proof pouch is in fact just a pouch; water is dripping out of the contact holes in the battery. I leave it in the sun, strapped to the top of the pile of gear in our raft and hope it dries out.

It’s 10am, I’ve gone through one battery, one is dead, which leaves three for 12 hours filming. Brian gives me a spare Watershed dry bag which is amazing and gratefully received. Living in Bangkok the gear available is frustratingly limited. Thank you Brian!

The rest of the day is spent catching tonnes of fish. The river is so productive it’s incredible. You can see thousands of salmon and trout in the crystal clear water. The kayakers aren’t seasoned anglers and yet they all pull fish after fish-of-a-lifetime out throughout the day. It's a tough way to shoot. We fish from the rafts and also stop at good spots to fish from shallows. The anglers are all spread out along the banks and when someone gets a fish we have to get there as quick as possible. This means rushing through the slippery shallows with the camera. The underwater housing weighs a tonne so Brian put it in his kayak and dragged it around.

I spend the whole day turning the camera off whenever there’s a moment; which isn’t often with so many fish being caught. By about 8pm I’ve been through all the batteries, and through them again to get the dregs of power from each one. When we get to camp I go through them all for a third time shooting some nice bits of evening sun around the camp - but eventually, completely powerless, I have to give up. I get the Russians to get the gennie out early and I sit up with the batteries into the night. Next morning I get another hour on the gennie and finish off charging the last battery. I have five for the day.

The next four days is spent floating down stream fishing, doing water tests and conserving battery power. The weather is incredible and the fish are amazing. One of the Russian dudes spends the week in nothing but his Sponge Bob Square Pants boxer shorts and a massive knife tied round his waist. It's a good look and one I hope one day I can pull off.

On the last day we get to the ‘dreaded’ canyon. Our guides have never been down this section of river so we send the kaykers down first to scout it out. Turns out the white water is no problem but at the bottom of the first rapid is a brown bear fishing with three cubs. I fully expect it to run off as we pass but it stays put and we all sit on the opposite bank for nearly two hours watching her pull fish out of the river. It’s an incredible sight. I drop the camera into 720 30i so I can over-crank it and shoot her in slow motion. It’s a pretty amazing afternoon’s filming and the whole sequence leading up to it should be great too. It was pretty hard on the batteries though and by the time we reach out last camp I’m totally out again. The battery that got wet has had a few days in the sun so I put it on the charger and, to my surprise, it registers and appears to take a charge. I’m back up to full power.


I get up at 5am to shoot some dawn time lapses. My 6 battery 'full house' turns out to be nothing but a mirage as the wet battery won’t power the camera. I’m back down to five batteries for the rest of the shoot. We call the helicopter with our coordinates to come and get us. It’s supposedly on it’s way for about 5 hours and we all sit around getting sun burnt in the long grass as we wait for it. Ryan fishes on, desperate to get us a King salmon but to no avail. I shoot some nice slo-mo of him casting the fly-line though. Eventually the chopper comes and we head back to the rusty cars of PK.

There's more information on Ryan's fishing trips here - The Fly Shop

As soon as well get back we’re off again. The kayakers have somehow found some poachers who are willing to be filmed so as the sun goes down we head out to meet them. When we get there it’s all a manic rush and no one really knows what’s going on but Zeb, Brian, Jay, Rob and I jump into a raft and follow these seriously dodgy chain-smoking guys downstream. It’s getting dark and we have no idea what’s going on.

We don’t really know who the guy rowing our raft is and another guy falls out of our raft and is dragged along the rocky beach. If you’re ever short of a bit of excitement in your life I can recommend going night rafting with Russian poachers. They net the width of the river and pull out a pile of fish.

It’s now completely dark and we round a corner and find Kate and Indra (P/D and AP) pleased to see us alive!

To be continued . . .