Meet the Aussie Surfers Who Travelled to Russia’s Kamchatka Peninsula in Search of Unridden Waves

‘We flew from Sydney to Abu Dhabi and, probably two hours before boarding, all the TVs in the airport just started showing the news that Russia was bombing Ukraine. And we were about to get on a flight to Moscow.’

That’s Guy Williment (@gfunk), surfer, adventure photographer, and a member of the Corners of the Earth crew. I was tempted not to start with this aspect of the story, to ‘focus on the surfing’ and dig into geopolitical issues a little later on, but I just can’t.

Tickets on sale now: Where To See Corners of the Earth: Kamchatka

After spending eight solid months planning a surf film that was wilder and more remote than their first film – an Icelandic winter surf epic called A Corner of the Earth – the country they were exploring had invaded their neighbour in the first 24 hours.

Months of pitching brands for sponsorship, repitching brands for more sponsorship (turns out helicopters and snowmobiles cost heaps), and figuring out logistics with contacts in one of the world’s most remote places, was circling the drain.

‘We had the hardest call of all of our lives,’ says filmmaker and surfer Spencer Frost. ‘We could have pulled the pin on the whole trip and gone back home. So we had two hours to get our heads together and make a call. Like, what is the right thing to do? And we’re still navigating it, we still don’t know. I think in hindsight, if we knew how serious the situation was going to get – and it’s still escalating – we might have made a different call…’

‘But the information that we had from people on the ground in Moscow and people in Australia led us to say “Let’s just get to Moscow. Commit and just get there, and see what happens”.’

A Chance Sighting of a Distant Wave

A Corner of the Earth was a raging success. The film brought a trio of Aussies – Guy, Spencer, and pro surfer Fraser Dovell (@fraserdovell), all of whom joined this recent expedition – to hostile waves set beneath stunning frozen backdrops, resulting in spine-tingling Burkard-esque vistas. The seed barely had to be planted.

‘It [A Corner of the Earth] won a bunch of awards all over the world, toured heaps of festivals, and sold out its film tour,’ says Spencer.

‘We were just kind of looking for the next wild surf destination. We had a few ideas, places like Norway were on the list, but it’s kind of been done. Alaska is still on the list but we’d heard rumours of this place called Kamchatka.’

Spencer tells me that surfers had been there in summer before but not in winter, when big swells come from the turbulent Pacific Ocean.

‘We were watching a snowboard film where Travis Rice goes to Kamchatka, and you see a glimpse of a wave. That really ignited this new dream. How can we get up there and be the first crew of professional surfers to make a surf film up there?’ Spencer tells me.

Tickets on sale now: Where To See Corners of the Earth: Kamchatka

From there he drafted up an introductory message, got it translated into Russian and just went for his life spamming Instagrams, websites, any kind of lead he could find. Eventually, success.

A surfer called Anton who was living on the Kamchatka Peninsula replied to his DM. They had a contact.

And that contact happened to know Max, the owner of a heliboarding business who’d managed logistics for the Travis Rice film.

‘Now we just needed to make it happen,’ says Spencer.

Some of the Most Remote Waves in the World

It was clear from the outset that this film was on a whole new level to their first effort.

‘We couldn’t just wing it and see what happens,’ says Guy.

‘Accessibility was the main thing because there’s only one beach that’s accessible by road in winter and the rest is military owned, or only accessible by helicopter.’

Their contacts were priceless, with Max providing realistic costs for essentials like helicopters and all terrain vehicles that could get them to waves in conditions 20 degrees below zero.

Difficult calls had to be made to ask sponsors for more money and they were kitted out with Arctic gear from Helly Hansen and custom 6mm wetsuits by Project Blank to deal with the 2 degree celsius water.

So, with tens of thousands of dollars on the line everything was meticulously planned out, right?

‘We had five hours of chopper time because it’s insanely expensive. So we had to pick our moments. After a few weeks, a big swell popped up on the radar and the weather was pretty iffy, but the pilot said we could fly. So we just hopped in, it was like a six metre swell with offshore wind, so it was massive, and we just flew along the coastline for half an hour just looking for waves.’

‘Sometimes we’d just jump on a skidoo,’ adds Guy. ‘We’d just drive along the coastline searching. It’s 1000km of coastline and we barely touched it.’

‘We briefly covered maybe 50-100km,’ says Spencer, ‘the whole coast must have waves and basically no one’s ever been there when there’s been swell. It was the first place I’ve been in my life where I’ve thought, “Wow, there are still parts of our world that are so untouched and so undiscovered”.’

Patience on the Peninsula

How often do you get in the water? Once a week? Once a day? Despite freezing conditions, swell and weather windows, and the realities of making a feature film out of the experience, the crew managed 20 surfs over the eight weeks.

That’s pretty impressive considering the region is known for storms that last for weeks at a time. As it turns out, Spencer reckoned the time bunkering down was necessary to keep them at their best.

‘We needed the down days in between these strike missions we were doing. We would get a helicopter to the beach, camp in the snow in like minus 20, surf… By the time we’d spent a few days doing that when we got back we’d just want to reset, charge the batteries, charge the personal batteries. It was pretty draining.’

‘We’d just relax, make plans, look at maps, talk to locals,’ Spencer says.

‘Snowboard!’ says Guy.

Well, when in Kamchatka…

But then Guy takes a more serious tone.

‘We were there during the war and it was always pretty sketchy. We had a ten day forecast but we didn’t know whether we’d leave in like two days or not. It was like running on adrenaline for two months.’

A War No One Wanted

The risk of entering a country that’s just invaded its neighbour is obviously high, but it’s clear that the gamble paid off.

With a fair bit of their own cash invested in the project, it kind of had to. But I couldn’t help wondering how the guys felt about promoting a country responsible for so much misery.

‘Everyone has that stereotypical view of what they think Russian people are like,’ Guy begins, ‘and we had that before we went. We were definitely in a bubble, we can’t speak on behalf of all of Russia at all, but the people we met were incredibly friendly and welcoming, and so opposed to what’s going on. They wanted to show us the best of Russia because, you know, we were probably some of the only foreigners in Russia at the time.’

‘We made lifelong friends – what’s happening in Ukraine is totally fucked up – but I think we had a chance to see that those people we met aren’t represented by some crazy leader. It’s been hard to navigate, we didn’t post on social media while we were there and we copped some backlash online back home once we did.’

Spence jumps in, ‘If people watch the film they’ll see that we’re definitely in it for the right reasons, we didn’t try and gain anything from the situation. At the end of the day it’s a surf trip with four mates.’

So How Was The Actual Surfing?

‘It was sick!’ Spence almost shouts.

‘We expected to get good waves but nothing special, but the waves blew away all of our expectations.’

Fraser Dovell and Letty Mortensen (@lettymortensen), the two pros on the trip, have surfed more waves than most ever will and Spencer reckons this trip will be up there.

The unique waves, the culture, just the scope of the project itself gave every wave such meaning. Perhaps especially so for Letty, who’d never done any proper cold water surfing before this trip.

Guy jumps in, ‘And the scenery, the backdrops, you’ve literally got volcanoes on the coastline, total sensory overload. It was like we’d dreamt.’

It sounded so addictive that I wondered aloud if strolling down into the warm waters of the Northern Beaches of Sydney once they got home was too easy, too nice even.

But Spencer tells me that once they arrived home, after running on adrenaline and stress for nearly two months, they crashed hard, the weeks living on the edge caught up to them and even walking to the shops was stressful for a bit.

Just Go For It

Inspired? Of course you are. But what’s it take to pull off a trip like this? I ask the guys what advice they have for inspired punters leaving the theatre after watching Corners of the Earth: Kamchatka for themselves.

‘We just feel like some fairly normal kids from the Northern Beaches that had a crazy idea and somehow wrangled it together,’ says Guy.

‘We’ve been so inspired by those who’ve come before us, the Chris Burkards and Jimmy Chins. You can do it, it’s just heaps of planning.’

That’s the key thing I’m taking from the two sunbleached blokes on the other side of my screen, is that the biggest barrier is not believing it’s possible. Break that notion down and things become possible very quickly.

‘Just go for it,’ says Spence. ‘We want to get people stoked. We got so much out of this trip and grew so much from it. If we can get people frothing on adventure and getting out of their comfort zone, that’s a pretty good goal I reckon.’

Corners of the Earth: Kamchatka is touring nationally. Where To See Corners of the Earth: Kamchatka

Photos thanks to Guy Williment @gfunk