Off again (for a while)

The time has come round again, the music in the shops, the queues for the car parks, the Redwings eating the berries and the salt on the road must mean it is time to go away and let my bike chain rust into uselessness.

The plan, though in places that is quite a strong word, is to: fly to the Falklands tomorrow, get on the ship, go to Rothera (Antarctic Peninsula, west side) via the South Orkneys (where we will spend Christmas dropping people off on uninhabited islands), stay at Rothera flying remote controlled submarines until early March, get back on the ship, go up to Punta Arenas in southern Chile, leave Punta and do a lap of the Scotia Sea, wave at the South Orkneys and South Georgia as we go past, get to the Falklands in late April, fly home, sleep.

Will post photos at irregular intervals during this process if they are either worth sharing or I feel I need to prove I'm still alive (and there is a working internet connection). For now though a suitably blowy and suitably snowy photo from April:

Butt of Lewis, Outer Hebrides

Cairngorms