Local Wild Life

A few dozen flies buzzed around the tent early one afternoon in Kamchatka, Russia.  The potential annoyance of one landing on my face kept me from dozing off.   Reaching for a fleece,  I covered my head and rolled over.  The tide wouldn't switch for another three hours and I was dead set on following my breakfast coma down the rabbit hole.  Shoving my face into my makeshift pillow, I laid still.

For a few minutes,  my technique kept the flies at bay.   Slowly however,  the constant buzz intensified until it inevitably landed  on my ear.

"Fucking flies."  I swatted my ear, dislodging the culprit.

Sitting up, I noticed that Cyrus had, much to the chagrin of the flies, synched the hood of his knapsack tight around his face so just his nose and mouth were exposed.  Stifling my curses,  I kicked off my sleeping bag and unzipped the tent.

Crawling out through the opening,  I quickly zipped the screen shut behind me.  Standing up and stretching, I looked around our camp.  A dozen Russian 4x4's dotted the beach.  The uncommonly warm fall day lured hundreds out from the closest city, Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky, to enjoy their weekend.

"Jesus Christ.  It's like Pismo Beach out here,"  I yelled to Chris, a staff Photographer at Surfer from the central coast of California, sitting on the grass watching Keith and Dane play guitar.

"Yeah, but I've never seen that at Pismo,"  Keith said motioning over my shoulder.

Everyone fixed their gaze on a family of three standing around an Izuzu SUV some fifty yards away.  The man, presumably the husband, was shirtless and brandishing a handgun.  The woman, wearing a bra and sweat pants, stood a few feet away with a young girl.  Resting the gun on the hood of the SUV,  the man reached through the driver's window and retrieved a handful of glass bottles.  Chucking the bottles one at a time into the sand he grabbed the handgun from the hood of the car, pulled the slide back and handed it to the daughter.  As if she had done this hundreds of times before,  she eagerly took the pistol from her dad's hand and pointed it in the direction where he had thrown the bottles. For a few moments she steadied the the pistol with both hands, then a pop, and a glass bottle broke.  A small plume of CO2 floated out of the barrel.

"No fucking way...It's a pellet gun," I laughed.

The girl quickly followed up with another shot and continued until she emptied the clip.  Eager to take part in the violence and stimulated by the warm day,  the mother,  without warning, kicked off her flip flops and stripped off her sweat pants.

"A G-Banger!!! Yes."

"You have got to be fucking kidding me.  Is that  neon?"

"Sure looks like it."

Two fresh-caught silver salmon by Keith.

Trevor Gordon is putting together a zine on the trip.  I'll post about it when it's out.

An active Volcano.

A local salmon poacher enjoying a mid morning swig of vodka and a cigarette.

Dane and Trevor debating whether to head back out.

An empty coastline.

A fisherman lives in this house by himself from April until October each year.

Trevor heading out for a session.

A remote cabin accessible by helicopter in the summer and snowmobile in the winter.  That stream is filled with geothermal hot water.

Ghetto bird.

Chris Burkard and Ben Weiland have an article coming out in the December Issue of Surfer Magazine.

A salmon poacher's vodka, waders and dog at a river mouth.

Keith in transit on the helicopter.

Hand done camo on a micro 4x4 vehicle.

Local wild life.

By this time,  everyone, including Serge, our Russian guide, had gathered around watching the spectacle unfold.   Taking the gun from the daughter,  the mother marched into position and took aim.  The husband interrupted her with an inaudible sentence and reached back into the driver's window and grabbed a few more glass bottles.  With the new targets in place,  she opened fire.

Sensing our gaze,  the daughter turned and looked towards seven Americans and a shirtless Russian with Binoculars.  Ducking behind a tent, we laughed like middle-school boys.

Here are some more links,

#Kamshaka (Instagram),

"Do Not Frustrate..." (ART).

The Dog Days are Over

The sun hung over the distant hills.   Standing in a dirt road berefoot in shorts, I searched for rocks the size of a finger tip.  Gathering a handful of choice specimens,  I stood up and removed my wrist rocket from my back pocket.  Selecting a the pick of the litter,  I pulled the pouch back  to my cheek and aimed towards a can some 20 feet away.  Letting go, the rock whirred towards the upright can, and missed by a few inches.  With a hiss, the rock ricocheted off a patch of hard dirt, emitting a sound familiar to a Sergio Leone film.   Searching in my back pocket,  I picked the runner up in terms of size and shape, and placed it in the pouch.  Brushing a fly off my shoulder,  I pulled the pouch back, let out a breath and released the rock.

It was early fall on the central coast of California.

It's a bit ambiguous when the summer ends and the fall begins.  The temperature stays about the same; hovering in the sixties at night and highs in the 70s during the day.  As a surfer,  the season change is evident by the switching of predominate swell direction from the southern hemisphere to the northern.  During this transitional time, the swell tends to die down and the section of coast protected by Channel Islands turns into a lake.  Hours stretch on. The dog days are over but the foggy days of "winter" haven't arrived yet.

Dan Malloy's bike set up for his Slow is Fast Bike Tour.

Heading to Lompoc.

Early morning shakas.

Campfire vibes.

Emma Wood is up to no good.

Rough Feet.

Jason Fraizer's Studio.

A view from 7000 feet in the Los Padres National Forrest.

The pace of time slows and my sense of urgency backs off.  Sometimes you just have to wait.  I've never been good at it.

Grabbing another rock from my back pocket,  I carefully centered it in the middle of the leather pouch.   Keeping my gaze fixed on the can,  I drew the rock back and released.   The can jumped a foot in the air with a hollow ting.

Here are some more links,

The Dog Days are Over (Florence and the Machine),

Out of Reception (Tumblr).

"Do Not Frustrate..."

Our empty plane banked right over a sea of clouds.  Sensing a shift in motion, I lifted my head from lying across an empty row and looked out through the port window. Two snow-capped volcanoes marked the center of our compass as the plane continued in a holding pattern.  Leaning back down on my makeshift pillow, I closed my eyes and dozed back to sleep.

Sometime later,  I moved from my semiconscious state and looked out the window again.  The volcanoes were in the same place at the center of our holding pattern.

Keith, siting behind me,  "We've been circling for 45 minutes,  I bet we're going to have to land somewhere and refuel."

Tired from 20 hours of travel,  I grunted in disapproval and lied back down on the empty row.

A thick accent blurted out over the loudspeaker,  waking me from my slumber, "Do not Frustrate... our flight need refueling and we must head to Magadan.  We will be back in Petropavlosk-Kamchatksi in... 3.75 hours." Following this announcement, he offered the handful of Russian nationals on the flight the same story in their native tongue.  Spread through a half dozen rows,  our crew, composed of Trevor Gordon, Cyrus Sutton, Ben Weiland, Dane Gaudauskus, Keith Malloy and Chris Burkard, perked up and sat to attention.

"Is that Siberia?" Trevor asked rubbing his eyes.

"It must be , that's the closest airport,  either that or we land in North Korea," Cyrus chuckled.

As predicted by the pilot, we were on the ground in Kamchatka four hours later, marking our total flight time from Anchorage at a hair over 10 hours. The airport, a relic from the Cold War,  resembled a mid 90's documentary on the History Channel, sporting a full squadron of long range strategic bombers,  tanks, helicopters and the occasional German Sheppard.  The custom officials ushered us and the thirty or so fifty year olds dead set on either catching boatfuls of rainbow trout or hunting for the region's three types of native sheep, never breaking from a mechanic demeanor.

Keith's beard posed a problem at immigration.  His ten-year-old passport picture presented him with long hair and scruff, (he now has short hair and a Poseidon-like beard).  That difference in appearance, combined with enough stamps and Visas to make James Bond blush prompted the immigration official to call over a gun-wielding security guard for a second opinion.  After twenty minutes of displaying multiple forms of ID's and offering to shave it off, Keith made it through beard intact.

Cyrus and Keith catching some cosmic rays after a session.

Trevor and his a symmetrical finless Rabbit's Foot.

Volcano cones.

Cy fresh off the plane.

Sunrise session.

After the clouds broke.

Keith's bodysurfing setup.

Trevor chasing Silver Salmon.

Cy warming up his feet after a sunrise session.

After gathering our boards,  pelican cases and dry bags, we congregated in the parking lot.  Volcanoes dotted the horizon in every direction.  The weather was in the mid 70's, and felt more like Central America than a remote sub-arctic peninsula known for its fishing and grizzly bears.  Waiting impatiently for our ride, we heard the low rumble of the 6x6 diesel engine long before we could see it.   After 36 hours of travel from Southern California,  we were finally in Kamchatka.

Here are some more links,

#Kamshaka (Instagram),

A Restless Transplant (Facebook).

Dirt Rippers

A sea lion's bark emanated from the fog covered shoreline some three thousand feet bellow as Trevor and I walked up the empty dirt road one late afternoon in July.  Shifting my skateboard from my right to my left hand, I paused and listened for a second call.  Nothing came.

"Did you hear that?"

"Yea... How the hell can we hear that up here.  The ocean is at least a mile away. Crazy"

"YYahh, well, there's no waves to drown them out.  Still wild though," I said, continuing my march up the hill towards a long flat section of compacted dirt.

Dropping my board, it bounced off the ground in a cloud of dust,  finally settling on its side.  I kicked it back onto its trucks with and angled it into position by moving the tail.

"Grip and rip it, Bra!"

"If you want the ultimate,  you have to be willing to pay the ultimate price!" I said, doing my best to mimic the late, great Patrick Swayze.  With half a push,  I started rolling down the road.  Rocks popped and shot out from under my polyurethane wheels.  Shifting my weight to my back foot, I bounced over a washout and caught my front truck on a strategically placed rock.

Sprawling, I caught myself after a few steps and looked back up the hill.  Trevor took the queue from my fall and pushed off.

Trevor clearing a gap.

Building up speed it rushed by in a cloud of dust and rocks.

Rooster tailing it.

Approaching the turn/wave.

Pulling into the dirt wave.  Trevor is pretty comfortable on a surfboard too.

After Trevor rounded the corner,  I repositioned my board and followed.  As the the sun settled into the fog, we made laps up and down the quarter-mile stretch of dirt road.  The occasional distant motorcycle on the PCH punctuated the relative silence, but then again, they may have heard our hooting and shouting too.

Here are some more links,

Trevor Gordon,

Dirt Rippers (Facebook).