i get a fairly steady hand he would shot all the way to the base of the falls and then just had to wait and wait and wait. so for probably 20 seconds i m just scanning the pool at the base of the falls waiting to see some sign of pedro, a paddle, just some color in the pool. i don t see anything. i get ready to put the camera down and repel to the base of the falls to help look for pedro and at that point another guide, another of the locals signals to he sees pedro walking out from behind the falls. at that point he says in portuguese, here he comes from behind the falls. that s when everyone erupts and is screaming. you know, in kind of laughter. yeah! ben says that when pedro emerges from the falls he s momentarily confused.
the kayaker making the death-defying ride is brazilian pedro olivia who he met in 2007. pedro was competing for the brazilian national team and i was filming for a company producing kayaks here in the united states. he started telling me about the amazing waterfalls in brazil. i m just going to lean back over. a year after meeting, the two planned the ride that would push them close to the danger zone. our hope is to salvage the new world record for the tallest waller fall run on the kayak. the previous is 108 feet and to beat this they look for the perfect falls and come upon salto bello in southern brazil. we looked at dozens of waterfalls that were potential candidates. from the first time pedro first saw the falls he says it was the perfect falls. he knew in his mind right then that he was going to run the falls. he felt that this was one of the most beautiful places he had ever seen. he felt like this was a heaven
he was able to get up after that, calm himself down a bit, avoid a couple more snakes, which ended up being lazy boa constrictors digesting a meal, somewhat harmless boa constrictors, but still a snake is enough to scare any one of us. and, yeah, he ended up from walking out behind the falls and telling us quite a tale. it was an experience that i ll remember for the rest of my life. being a part of a world record-breaking decent was something that is still with me and still makes me smile and makes me take pause from time to time. that said, ben and pedro are not resting on their morals. there are plans in works to continue our search for bigger more beautiful falls. the game is on. the game is on. coming up, a skateboarding legend attempts a jump over a famous site, but a fall threatens everything.
we might not be able to get to him in time. we would literally have, at most, a couple of minutes to get pedro out of the water, so we needed to be ready for him to be unconscious and to be able to get him out of the river if he were unconscious. contingency plans are in place. pedro is ready to go and ben has his camera in hand. pedro was extremely confident right before the run. he had a feeling that everything was going to go extremely to plan. as we were waiting for pedro to come around the corner, come out of the trees paddling, i was nervous. i was anxious, i was excited, i was worried. it was definitely high anxiety for me. it was all i could do to stay focused on the task at hand, capturing pedro s decent on tape. ben does just that. he catches pedro approaching the falls, goes over and disappears.
coming up, a kayaker goes over a 27-foot waterfall. i m standing a the pool at the base of the falls looking for some sign of pedro. i don t see anything. caught on camera: the danger zone continues.