For those of you not on Facebook I thought I’d repost this, a description of this summer’s epic trip up north (a month on the MV Discovery)

“saw five species of whales, more harpoons and whale bones than a normal person should, the site of the world’s oldest parliament, puffins, gannets, white tailed sea eagles, various skuas, several Russian orthodox churches, several Lutheran churches, several Russian naval vessels including an aircraft carrier, a fleet of nuclear powered icebreakers, geysers (at Geysir), volcanoes, glaciers, stone circles, stone labyrinths, stone cairns, stone houses, turf covered houses (with goats grazing on the roof), lighthouses, orchids, lupins, tall trees, tiny trees, the North Sea, the Iceland sea, the Norwegian Sea, the Barents Sea, the White Sea, the Denmark Strait and the Atlantic, and so many beautiful waterfalls, fjords and mountains, and the first gulag (which was grim). Filled four sketch books, 10 watercolour paintings and took 5730 photos in 30 days (and wasn’t seasick once)”

Details of ports and places visited- Harwich, Lerwick (Shetland), Torshavn (Faroe Isles), Seydesfjordur, Husavik, Isafjordur. Reykjavik (Iceland), Heimaey (couldn’t land but circumnavigated the island and went on to pass Surtsey), Kirkwall (Orkney), Harwich, Bergen, Lofoten Isles, Honningsvag, Kirkenes (Norway), Archangel. Solovetsky Islands, Murmansk (Russia), Tromso, Floro (Norway).

And as you can imagine it was great inspiration and the work is flowing….