Andy’s review of 2024

This was another full-on year for me, building on some of the new ventures from last year. We began the year in the main square at Grantown on Spey where the whole village congregates at ‘the bells’. It’s a great atmosphere and very companionable. George and I were staying at the Grant Arms for a few days and enjoyed taking a break from being at home.

In the middle of January, we began our journey across the Atlantic to Santiago, Chile and then to Puerto Williams in the far south to join the Silver Cloud. Andy as an expedition guide and ornithology lecturer and George as my guest for the first voyage; a win-win-win for George, Silver Sea and me. Changing career like this has been a challenge I have had to meet head on. Each contract, I must parachute into a young international team and swim straightaway, proving my worth. I must learn new skills and unlearn old bad habits. It has been amazing, and I am so grateful to all the fantastic people who have taken me at face value and welcomed me into the expedition cruising world.

This year I did five southern hemisphere voyages: firstly, with George from Puerto Williams to the amazing South Georgia to Antarctica and back, three back-to-back Antarctica trips and finally Puerto Williams to Falklands to South Georgia to Tristan da Cunha to Walvis Bay in Namibia. This last voyage was a fantastic experience, visiting some of the most important seabird archipelagos in the world. We were joined by a team from APEX which was an interesting experience, both good and bad. Nevertheless, we visited the incredible Tristan da Cunha; possibly the world’s remotest community and one of the world’s great seabird breeding sites. We were able to land at Edinburgh of the Seven Seas on Tristan Island and we cruised Nightingale, Gough and Inaccessible Islands by Zodiac. I was privileged to see all of the seabird specials for these islands, including Tristan, Sooty and Atlantic Yellow-nosed Albatrosses, Spectacled, Grey, Kerguelan and White-headed Petrels and of course Northern Rockhopper Penguins.

In May, we went on a birding holiday to Slovenia and what a delight that was. We enjoyed excellent company in the GBC group and were fantastically led by Jure and Nastja from Fotonatur. Not only did we see some great birds such as Ural Owl but were able to appreciate this beautiful and friendly country. Unfortunately, one of our group had a health issue, but found the health care here to be properly funded, sophisticated and easily accessible. After this week in Slovenia, we travelled to Lake Garda for a stay for a week in a beautiful villa with my sisters to celebrate Alison’s 21^st birthday. Ahem. The weather was challenging at times, but we still managed a few excellent excursions on and around the lake.

At the end of May, I had a six-week contract on Silver Wind. We travelled a few days early to enjoy London before joining the ship and were able to watch in awe as she passed under Tower Bridge at the end of the preceding voyage. The weather in Scotland was challenging (sounds familiar) but improved as we passed around northern Iceland. I got to visit the famous Lake Mývatn in Iceland, Jan Mayen, Svalbard and Bear Islands, and saw some fantastic wildlife. In Svalbard, mammal sightings eclipsed those for birds with many new species, such as Polar Bear, Beluga, Ringed and Bearded Seal, Walrus and Arctic Fox.

I returned home in early July, and we continued our poor summer weather; we only managed two tandoori nights this year. The main event in the pond was the discovery of Palmate Newts presumably breeding there. I wondered why frog and toad spawn never seemed to come to anything. I even put frog spawn into a bucket to give the tadpoles a chance, but they all ‘disappeared’ when released back into the pond, presumably because of the newts. We saw the predatory newts a couple of times, but using my cheap underwater camera, I was able to get a few snaps of males and females.

One of the major jobs we undertook this year was to refurbish the kitchen, which was starting to fail after 15 years of loyal service. The main reason, however, was the need to hide the ugly hot water tank and indoor indoor parts of the air source heat pump we installed last year. With much more storage space, it has allowed us to clear the kitchen surfaces of clutter. The breakfast bar gives a better view of the front garden, and two Yellow-browed Warblers there (plus another at the rear) and a few other interesting bird sightings was our reward for improved coverage. Other improvements include the addition of a warming tray which has been used much more than we anticipated beyond my bread-making.

We didn’t travel much after May until we decided to take a ‘bucket list’ holiday to India with Bespoke India Travel in November to try and see Tigers in the wild. To say it was successful is a major understatement and we loved the three Tiger reserves we visited: Tadoba, Pench and particularly Satpura. We were blessed with four Tiger sightings on eight Jeep safaris. As it turns out, Tigers are not particularly shy at these reserves and happily walked along the tracks, among the Jeeps, tolerating noise and movement and simply going about their business of scent sniffing and marking. More unexpected were good sightings of Sloth Bear and of Leopard, both at Satpura.

We are now running up to Christmas. Andy’s sisters (Alison and Janis) and brother-in-law Keith (a.k.a. KC) will be visiting. George’s son David and his husband Damon will visit between Christmas and New Year, and his daughter Stephanie, son-in-law Andy and two grand-daughters Erin and Bethany will visit after Hogmanay. It has been a great year in which I have been privileged to make many new friends and spend some (but never enough) time with old friends. Wishing you all a relaxed Christmas and good health an