I am now back home having completed all this years expeditions which started in January with a six week voyage to The South Sandwich Islands.
I have decided to have a complete break this winter and will not be heading south as usual. I have nothing planned now until March 2012, this is mainly due to the fact that I have eventually managed to buy (after many years of looking) a croft in a beautiful location at Cheesebay, North Uist in the Western Isles of Scotland. There is much work to do and it will take up a lot of my time over the next few months. I am going to be based up there for a large part of the year and will be hoping to build several permanent hides to photograph species like Golden Eagle, Sea eagle and Otter that can be used in winter on a regular basis.
There are several projects still in the planning for summer 2012 and I will post details when things are a little more advanced. The Franz Josef Land charter is not going to happen (at least not in 2012 as the cost of permissions for a non-Russian registered vessel are too prohibitive at the moment)
I am still looking at chartering for an expedition to The Kuril Islands in July 2013 as well as South Georgia and Falklands in Nov-Dec 2013.
More news soon.
Nigel