That Time Cyrus Sutton And Friends (Almost) Didn’t Come Home From Russia

You can’t always have a good trip. In episode eight of Reef’s Just Passing Through Series, Cyrus, Anna Ehrgott and photographer Dylan Gordon fight the elements of Russia in search for perfection–which is never found. They nearly get killed by poachers who thought the were military, are given a gun for bear protection then have that gun taken away, are unsuccessful fishing and attacked by swarms of insects. This is the trip you didn’t want to be on, eloquently narrated by Mr Sutton.

Cyrus told us in an edition of Red Eye (A Reef x Stab Joint) he’d never go back to Russia after this trip. “We almost got killed last time we went,” he said. “It’s the first place I’ve been where I decided I’d never go back. We discovered this really hollow wave on my last trip. We didn’t get it right, and I’d always wanted to go back and surf it on a typhoon. The area’s idyllic. There was only one guy who lived there in a cabin with his wolf-dog. I wanted to make a film about him, his life and find some waves. The only way you can get there is by helicopter. We rented one – which is really expensive. I wouldn’t have been able to do it without the support of Reef.”

“We got dropped off,” he continues. “There’s no reception without a sat phone; we had a satellite texter — two for Mayday, one for we’re okay. When we got there, the area had turned into a poacher camp. The man and his dog were gone; they most likely killed him. At first, they thought we were military or police. They took us in and for a few days sussed us out. It was obvious they were deciding whether or not they were going to kill us. If they got caught, or if we told on them there would be serious repercussions. What they were doing was illegal, but the people of Russia are generally pretty poor. The tension was thick. I had my ex-girlfriend on the trip. She was probably the only woman they’d seen in a long time. They were a real motley crew. Luckily they decided to befriend us so we wouldn’t rat on them. But that was only when they realised we were just surfers and pretty harmless.”