KAMCHATKA Part 3

Next day it’s back to the helipad and we fly to Kurile Lake. It’s a different chopper company and we take off, hover a few feet above the ground and land again. The pilot says we’re 300 kilos too heavy. So we dump 5 of the 6 kayaks (we don’t really need them for this part of the filming anyway), and try again. Off we go, jubilant that we still have the beer with us - that was going to be the next thing to go.

For the first time on the trip I get to sit at the door and shoot. I’ve taken a brand new climbing harness but they insist on me using their weird belt that won’t even tighten up. The door is cut-away at the top so quite a lot of wind from the blades comes in and as we’re always flying over ridges and mountains there’s also quite a lot of small turbulence. It’s not great for filming steady stuff but I rolled so much that there must be something good of the incredible landscape.

The approach to the lake is pretty amazing, Zeb and I are filming at the door and we see bears and rivers full of fish. We land at the bio station and a guy in a crazy six wheeled mini tank, like an amazingly pimped golf buggy with a diesel engine, comes to meet us. This place is cool, we’re surrounded by electric fences to keep the bears out. Everyone looks nails and carries guns. There’s a wooden house, loads of cabins for doing research in and futuristic pod-tent things which we’ll sleep in. If you had to design a Russian bio station for a Bond film, this would be it.

We have a tour of the site and then ask if we can go out on the boats to see the spawning salmon we’ve come to film. Apparently the lake is too choppy for the boats today so we’ll have to walk. We strip the kit down in to a running kit - still loads of stuff though - and head off outside the fence. Immediately we see a bear and cubs.

We’re following footpaths through thick, high vegetation. Except these aren’t footpaths, these are bear trails, and they’re very well trodden. A lot of bears are using these trails, very often. We have to stick to the armed ranger which makes filming hard. I can’t run ahead and find position like I normally would. Instead we film the whole thing on the move with Zeb doing pieces to camera over his shoulder as I stumble about behind him. As with much of the filming on this trip it’s needs must, hopefully this will come across in the edit.

The ranger sets quite a pace, especially as we all have kit and we walk about 2 or 3 miles I reckon. Eventually we get to the beach and walk along it for a while. There’s a bear fishing a few hundred metres up the beach. I put the long lens on and get some nice stuff as it makes it’s way down the beach towards us. When it gets to about 50 metres away I shoot it doing a huge belly-flop into the lake and coming up with a fish.

Then we look round and there’s another bear coming up from behind us. She has some cubs too. As she fishes she is completely oblivious to us. She gets closer and closer, all the time her eyes on the water looking for fish. 20 metres away - surely she’ll see us soon?10 metres. 5 metres. The ranger is a little concerned but doesn’t reach for his gun. Instead he makes himself big and makes loud but non-threatening noises.

I’m filming all this on the tripod and she runs out of shot towards us. I have no idea how close she is as I’ve had my eye to the viewfinder the whole time so I crash out, leave it running and step back from the camera. She’s in the water right in front of us - about 3 metres away. The ranger is tense. She runs past us which means we’re now on a very narrow bit of beach between her and her cubs - not a great position. I grab the camera handheld. There’s a few seconds where we’re not sure what to do and then she runs back past us.

She’s walking away from us and gets about 20 metres away when another bear comes out of the vegetation. The two bears have a standoff with a bit of growling and the new bear goes back into the long grass. The ranger says we need to get out of here and we’re not going to argue with him so we start to walk down the beach. The bear is still there and we’re trapped on the beach. I shoot all this from behind Zeb with him talking us through what’s going on. Eventually she moves off into the long grass and we can pass and march back to the bio station. On the way back I manage to climb a few trees and shoot Zeb and the ranger walking beneath. It’s the only way I can do anything static with out going too far from the ranger. It’s a cool sequence but still no spawning salmon.

Day two at the bio station and we shoot a sequence of fish counting. The scientists here count all the fish migrating into the lake - by hand. We need to do some underwater stuff of the fish passing through the counting gate. It’s bitingly cold and Brian goes in.

We quite often set the camera on the river bed and weigh it down with rocks but as the rocks are all volcanic half of them actually float. Good job we bought dive weights. The shot works out great and Brian also gets some nice stuff of both red Sockeye salmon and Sockeye that are still silver from the ocean.

That night it is really cold and the sat-phone won’t work so we’re totally out of contact with the rest of the world. The kayakers throw a little party in the dinning tent. What a cool place for a party.

Next day we film with another one of the rangers. He came to this area in the 90’s when poaching by organised gangs was rife. He and his colleagues came in and kicked ass, running dangerous missions in the night. He took us to one of the poacher’s huts they’d burnt down and gave us an amazing interview.

We set off to look for more salmon but we get the news that the weather is coming in and we have to decide if we want to stay here or get out while we can. It’s a tough call as there’s so much we can film here but we can’t afford to be stuck here indefinitely as there isn’t an hour of slack left in our schedule. We call for the helicopter and as we’re rushing around packing and trying to shoot everything we haven’t had time to do the helicopter arrives early, for the first time in the shoot.

It’s a real shame we have to leave as some of the sequences we’ve shot aren’t really complete but that’s the way it goes. On the way back we stop off by a river that we’re apparently able to pull King salmon out of at will. Surprise surprise we can’t, the fish spoil the party again. I use the time to go back up in the helicopter and do some low flybys of the river. I ask the pilot to fly however he can that makes it smooth. He does the opposite and flies sideways up the river, a great shot but it’s pretty bumpy.

As we leave and head back to PK the pilots are spotted having a beer in the cockpit. Well it is Sunday, it’d be rude not to.

No sooner are we back in the comfort of Martha’s house and we’ve arranged to leave at 4am the next day. We’ve had a call from Azabache lake in the north of Kamchatka apparently they have millions of spawning Sockeye there. It’s a 24 hour journey on unsurfaced roads but with only a few days of the shoot left we don’t have time to be on the road for that long. There is some money in the budget left from a helicopter trip that we didn’t need so we decide to go half way by road and the rest by helicopter. This decision costs $12,000 dollars so these fish had better be good!

At 4am we get outside to find yet another amazing vehicle. This time it’s a truck the size of a quarry truck but with a Porta-cabin full of 1970’s seats stuck on the back. Amazing. We do 11 hours on unsurfaced roads in the Porta-cabin. And after a another cold flight sitting at the door of the helicopter we get put down in a meadow of long grass by the Azabache bio station.

Mosquitoes. More mosquitoes than I have ever seen. The deet comes out and works for about 5 minutes but they’re everywhere, biting through hair, jeans, coats. I have to spray the camera too to try and keep them off the lens. The only thing that will stop them are the waders that the kayakers have lent me. So for the next two days I cover my head in deet and don’t take my waders and water proof jacket off.

It’s evening and the scientists take us out to a spot where they think there’ll be fish. When we get there there’s nothing but dead slamon all over the place. It’s like a fish massacre. We do some filming and Zeb’s disappointment is real. I try to film a sunset time lapse but give up as there’s too many mosquitoes all over the lens.

That night we’re worried that we’re not going to get the spawning salmon and that coming here has been an expensive mistake. Tomorrow is the last day we can spend here. We have three days in Kamchatka left and 14 hours of that have to be spent traveling back to PK. We’re running out of time.

The next morning we’re marched into the woods by the scientists. About a mile from the lake we find a hidden lagoon. It has waterfall streams pouring into it, crystal clear spring water and is full of spawning Sockeye. At last! We spend 6 hours there. Brian fills two cards of underwater footage of red sockeye salmon on their spawning beds - called redds. This will be the end of show so we film pieces to camera for it. Mossies start biting my right hand during one take and I can’t get them off without wobbling the camera. With every word Zeb says I can feel them biting me again and again. Suffering for my art and all that.

That night we’re buzzing that we’ve got the scene we came for. We have a team banya (Russia sauna) - a rare moment of down time for me on the whole trip. In the morning the helicopter comes and I shoot Zeb jumping on and off it in slo-motion with all the long grass blowing about. They drop us off in a deserted clearing in the middle of a wood. The crew don’t stop the rotor and throw all our stuff out and take straight back off. As they leave our huge truck roars out of the wood. Amazing!

The last day is spent filming in the local market. We shoot an undercover scene which involves rigging the Go Pro in a bag which I've cut a hole in. Our translator volunteers to take the bag and approach dealers who buy illegally caught salmon caviar around the back of the market.

That night the kayakers very kindly cook up a feast for us and everyone who’s made the trip possible. It’s a great way to end the shoot and it’s the only time on the shoot we get near a King salmon, and it’s delicious.

Next morning we fly back to Vladivostok where it’s a beautiful afternoon. We want to get more GV’s so we go out filming. But after three weeks in Kamchatka Vladivostok seems like the most cosmopolitan place on Earth and we’re not really getting what we want.

On the way to the airport the next morning I have a driver who sounds like Borrat and tells me about “the beautiful woman of Vladivostok” and gets excited when he sees air stewardesses. Kate and Indra’s driver falls asleep at the wheel and has to be kicked by Kate.

As we leave Russia the trip already feels like a dream. We did so many amazing things and went to so many places that it’s hard to remember all the details. It was great to work with Rob, Jeff, Shane, Jay, Ethan and Brian. It was these guys that had the vision to organise an expedition to Kamchatka in the first place. Thanks guys. Kate and Indra, with the help of Martha, also did an amazing job of planning in an unplannable location.

The kayak team’s website has more information about the goals of the expedition and can be found here.

Brian also runs an awesome production company called Reel Water Productions.. Check their site here to see some amazing cable-cam work and more.

Most of these photos were taken by Indra, some by Kate and some by Brian, Shane and Ethan

The programme will be part of Monster Fish With Zeb Hogan series 3, probably on screens in the US in 2011 and elsewhere after that.