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Kamchatka is a land
shaped from fire and ice. A remote,
spectacular part of the world with 30 active
volcanoes and vast tracts of unexplored
wilderness. The Eastern Seaboard of the
Kamchatka peninsula on Russia’s Pacific
coast has been protected from modern
development by decades of Soviet rule.
 2
women, Justine Curgenven and
Hadas Feldman,
set themselves the challenge of kayaking 300
miles along the exposed, lonely coastline.
Big surf, unpredictable weather, the world’s
largest population of brown bears and a
complete lack of infrastructure add to the
challenges. But the biggest difficulty of
all is that they have to take a novice
Russian kayaker with them!
And he did it. 650km in
19 days with only 2 rest days. The surf was
always intimidating and at times downright
scary. I got knocked over onto my side on
the first day and my heart sank as I thought
I was going to have to try to roll. Luckily
I got away with it and hip flicked back up.
Alexey swam many times when the surf was big
but he did amazingly well and managed to
stay in his boat on days when Hadas and I
felt sure we'd be fishing him out of the
water.
After our very first day of paddling we had
just set up our tents and thrown our gear
all over the beach when a tank arrived. 8
soldiers jumped off and slung their rifles
over their shoulders. One man stepped
forward and demanded to see our permits. It
was quite exciting for a time, and Hadas and
I watched Alexey and the soldier talking and
pointing. Then Alexey told us that there was
a problem. Not only did we have to go with
the soldiers to their base, but we had to
take all our kit and our kayaks. Hadas
looked horrified as I point blank refused to
move. I had spent such a long time planning
this trip and probably seen too many films.
I was paranoid that we'd be thrown into a
jail by corrupt Russian soldiers and told we
couldn't leave until we produced 5,000
dollars. NO, I said again. However, the
soldiers weren't budging and it became
obvious that we had little choice. The
Russians helped us load the kayaks onto the
tank and off we went over sand dunes and
across a river. Hadas and I had to wait on
the tank outside the base while god knows
what went on inside. But after 3 hours
Alexey emerged and told us everything was
OK. The soldiers followed him and took us
back to the exact same spot on the beach.
What an adventure - and I got it on camera!!
 Back
on the water, we saw our first brown bears
and we were very nervous about landing
anywhere. Massive foot prints seemed to be
on every beach, no matter how steep the
cliffs. On day 3 we arrived at the perfect
beach for a campsite but it was so good that
there were already 2 bears there foraging
for seaweed. Fortunately they ran away when
they smelt us and we were treated to the
spectacle of them clawing their way up an
impossibly precipitous cliff. The only
problem with that was that they'd be able to
come back down again. Hadas and I tried to
believe Alexey when he said that the bears
would stay away now that they knew we were
here. I'm sure Alexey knows his stuff and I
can only imagine that the bear that wandered
within 100 metres of our campsite later that
night hadn't got the message on the bear
grapevine that this beach was out of bounds.
Hardly anyone lives along this stretch of
coast but we visited most of the people that
do. Our first encounter was at the fishing
village of Jupanova. A few dozen men work
there for 8 months of the year with no
contact with home. They looked after us in
the fashion that everyone we met would. They
let us use their Russian sauna and fed us
salmon and caviar for dinner and breakfast.
They also let Alexey salt some salmon that
he had found in a washed up fishing net that
morning.
The most touching contact we had was with 2
couples who man a remote lighthouse. Their
outpost is so isolated that we were the
first people they had seen for 8 months. We
delivered 2 letters to one man and it nearly
made me cry to watch the joy on his face as
he read news of his son. The letter had been
written 6 months before but that didn't
matter to him.
 Overall
the trip was very exciting and full of
different challenges. We had thick fog for
several days which kept us on our toes
navigating - especially as there were many
offshore reefs and rocks. At one point we
couldn't tell if we were kayaking around a
small offshore rock or if we were right by
the mainland. For the last 4 days our
fortunes changed, the sun came out in force
and we found we were too hot in our winter
thermals. Kamchatka was experiencing an
unprecedented heat wave. Even the swell died
down and we enjoyed sunshine, calm seas and
stunning views. I even paddled in a bikini
one day!
We pulled our kayaks on shore for the last
time in the fishing town of Ust Kamchatsk,
19 days after leaving Petropavlovsk. We'd
made it safely to the one road back to the
capital. As always at the end of an exciting
and challenging journey, our heads were full
of conflicting emotions. Happiness and
relief to have achieved our goal, and
sadness that we have to leave it all behind
and face that thing called real life again.
You can see a 1hour
documentary of this expedition on the
National Geographic Channel and Adventure1.
It's programme 17 in a series called
"Adventure Challenge" and is called "One
Risk Too Many". The highlights of the
expedition can be seen on the DVD "This is
the sea"
Hadas and I would
like to heartily thank everyone who helped
make the Kamchatka expedition possible.
Nigel Dennis Kayaks
Lendal
Reed Chillcheater
Peak UK
Snapdragon
Teva
Powerbar
The Welsh Sports Council Overseas Expedition
Fund
Extreme Vision Systems (makers of the
waterproof minicam system)
The North Face
Martha Masden from Explore Kamchatka
For More About The Kamchatka Expedition:
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