Learning is a treasure that will follow its owner everywhere

Every now and then, as a photographer I shoot a story that really touches me deeply.  You can never tell which one it’s going to be and often you only realize it when you are looking back through your pictures in hindsight.  Sitting here in the warmth of my hotel room, I have to admit that the last week I have spent in Zanskar has been one such assignment, one that I will carry with me for ever.

Zanskar’s mountainous landscape is an unforgiving place in winter.  Temperatures can plummet to minus 40 at night and avalanches are a frequent occurrence.  Add to this the fact that the only road in and out of the area is completely impassable for 6 months of the year and the result is a community of Zanskaris whose hardiness and resilience cannot fail to make an impression on you.  It never ceases to amaze me how people who live in such harsh conditions can be so friendly and accommodating.  One could hazard a guess that over the years their overly active survival genes would tend to make them selfish people but the reality is the complete opposite.  In Zanskar the communities are strong and warm.  A knock on a stranger’s door will always result in food and a bed for the night, such is the way of their mountain culture.

In recent years, Zanskar has become somewhat a mecca for trekkers and outdoor enthusiasts alike.  Those that venture here in winter do so with certain preconceptions, the main one being that it can be a very dangerous place that is not to be taken lightly.  Like our team, with them foreign visitors tend to bring state of the art survival gear, cooks, porters, tents… sometimes a whole battalion of helpers designed to make their experience as comfortable as can be.   What most of them discover when they arrive and start walking is that they share these pathways with local Ladakhis who are just living their day-to-day lives as they have done for hundreds of years.

Our story here has centred around a group of children who are making their journey to boarding school in Leh.  For the winter term, with no vehicle access to their homes there is only one route available to them and that is down the Zanskar river.  With the consistently sub-zero temperatures, at this time of the year the waterway forms a frosty road that the locals call chadar meaning ‘veil’ by reference to its icy covering.

Over-nighting in a cave

Walking the chadar can be a treacherous task that has already claimed the life of one foreigner so far this year.  The ice covering is unpredictable and can change its consistency over night as our team discovered when heavy snow fall caused a series of avalanches that resulted in a temporary dam in the river which, when it finally broke, sent a torrent of water down the valleys, flooding the ice and leaving them stranded at high altitude for 7 days.

For the local Zanskari girls and boys, the walk to school takes several days with nights spent in caves .  Accompanied by one or other of their parents, many are expected to carry their own possessions, often on home-made sledges that double up as backpacks when the ice gets too uneven to pull on.  On such an arduous journey one might expect to hear regular cries of protest but not once did I hear anything of the sort.  Led by the most experienced adult the children were always upbeat and resolute, sharing the burden of their bags, the older ones holding the hands of the younger.

Chaotic crushed ice from the water surge

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When we face hardship it is never more apparent than in the eyes of children.  The Zanskari children I have spent the last week with have been a most amazing inspiration to me.  The smiles and laughter.  The instinctive sharing of any food they have.  A concerned eye as you veer towards thinning ice.  These kids are absolutely incredible and there’s no doubt that they inherit their wonderful temperament from their parents.  I don’t have children yet myself, but when I do, if they blossom into anything near to the kind of human beings I have met here in Zanskar then I will die a happy and content man.

Yesterday we finally arrived in Leh after a 2 hour drive from the end of the ice, the jeep packed full of children laughing and singing folks songs at the tops of their voices.  I’ll leave you with a snap that I stole of a sign hanging above the headmaster’s desk in his office at school this morning.  For me it says it all.

Great kids grow up to be great parents

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Interested in more stories from Ladakh?  Try HERE

TASEARCHLADAKH

Home, the spot of earth supremely blest, A dearer, sweeter spot than all the rest

I have been here in Ladakh for 3 days already but today was the first day I’ve actually managed to get out and do a bit of sight-seeing.  This has been due to the inevitable bout of altitude sickness that has inflicted me these past few days like many people who travel here directly by aeroplane from Delhi, some ten and a half thousand feet beneath us.  In fact, the last time I came here, shortly after I arrived I was ill in bed for almost two weeks, so I’m actually quite pleased with my recovery this time round.

I’m here to hook up with our Rivers team who have been traveling with a Ladakhi family across the mountains in Zanskar, to the south of the provincial capital Leh where I am staying at the moment.  Unfortunately, they have been somewhat held up by bad weather and consequently our rendezvous has been set back by 5 days meaning that I will be waiting here in Leh for another few days before I set off to trek to the meeting point.

I’ve never been to Ladakh in the winter time before, an experiential short falling that I evidently share with much of the travelling community as I can report back that there is hardly a foreign soul to be seen anywhere around here right now.  There are reasons for this of course.  Ladakh’s summer tourist season is a short 3 to 4 month affair, due in the most part to the fact that the only two roads into the area, via Srinagar in the west and Manali in the south, remain closed and impassable for much of the year.  In winter the only way in is by plane so the number of foreign visitors declines drastically, especially of Ladakh’s backpacking community who prefer the cheaper routes in by road.  Couple that with the fact that it’s very cold and that most of Leh’s guesthouses and cafes are closed and you are left with a travellers’ consensus opinion that this part of the Himalayas does not make a particularly enticing tourist destination at this time of the year.

Well, I have something to admit to you.  Having now been out and about a little, I must say that this is most definitely a great time of the year to visit Ladakh, and that coming off-season will probably give you the most rewarding experience you could ever have up here.  OK, it’s going to be a little harder than in the summer.  If you turn up unannounced, you’ll probably have to knock on a few doors before you find a cheap guesthouse that will take you in, and don’t bargain for the smell of freshly baked croissants wafting past your window from Leh’s German bakery first thing every morning.  However, what you can expect are beautiful snow dusted landscapes, quiet monasteries and beaming locals who appear genuinely pleased to see you braving the winter temperatures.

Winter in Ladakh. Not a foreign soul to be seen

Being stuck in Leh is no bad thing for me, even if my favourite coffee shop is closed.  Last time I came here I spent 2 months riding a motorcycle through this amazing landscape which is something I would heartily recommend to anyone who really wants to have a good look around this astonishing corner of India.  Back then, I bought an old Royal Enfield Bullet from an American couple in Leh for about 400 dollars and promptly sold it at the end of my trip to a Swiss couple for exactly the same amount of money.  During my 2 month adventure I managed to take a peek at most of Ladakh’s quieter corners including a myriad of local festivals, isolated glacial lakes and even a rare chance to see the Dalai Lama give teachings in the remote Nubra Valley, accessible only by negotiating a somewhat light headed drive over the infamous Khardung La pass, currently the highest motorable ‘road’ in the world at 18 380 ft.

Taking a breather atop Khardung La

Prior to that trip, I had never ridden a motorcycle before, so don’t think that you need to be an experienced rider to travel the Himalayas on a motorbike.  Yes, the first few days in the saddle were scary, but then again it wouldn’t be such a rewarding challenge without a little fear to propel you along.  In fact, I would say that of all the places to start riding a motorcycle in India, Ladakh is probably the safest due to the limited volume of traffic on the roads compared to the rest of the country.  The main things to watch out for are sand and potholes in the road plus the occasional unbarriered extreme drop off you find flanking a few of the roads, all three problems being easily solved by just driving slowly.  It’s important to plan your trips well too, measuring precise distances on maps before you set off since there are only a few petrol stations in Ladakh.  You will need to carry extra fuel with you on your panniers, especially if you plan to explore Zanskar, which had no functioning refuelling station when I was there 3 years ago.

Many people who visit Ladakh by bike travel here from Delhi along the notorious Manali road which has become somewhat of a rite of passage for motorcyclists throughout India.  It’s a tough two or three-day journey including no fewer than four over 16 000 ft passes, countless water crossings, glaciers and some stomach turning sections of high altitude sandy desert.

Oh... did I mention the hairpin bends?

There is no way to describe in words the feelings you experience cruising down a deserted mountain road alone in the saddle flanked by some of the world’s tallest snow-capped peaks, wind in your hair, a huge smile plastered from ear to ear.  For me, riding a motorbike rates as one of the best ways to move through a landscape briskly whilst remaining connected with it and as a photographer it is such a brilliant way to explore a remote environment like Ladakh, giving you the freedom to stop at will and check out every little unmapped road to nowhere you might discover.  One day I pursued such a road that went on for absolutely ages.  Determined to find out where it went, after nearly three hours I was about to turn back when the faint cry of a young lady on a distant ridge caught my attention and lead me to the end of the track, and her fantastically hospitable family farming cashmere goats at a sensational spot in the middle of nowhere.

The farm at the end of the road

I ended up staying there for 2 days, working with the family by day, and sleeping with them on the roof of their house under the stars by night.  It was a truly memorable experience, the likes of which I would never have been gifted were it not for my trusted Enfield.

My adoptive family on the farm

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This morning, I found myself sitting around in the hotel twiddling my fingers so I had a little root around in my laptop and to my surprise I found an old iView MediaPro catalogue file from that last trip to Ladakh.  So, as an ode to my previous summer bike tour around these parts, here are a few pictures from that journey.

The view from the roof of Thikse Monastery

A village celebration

Descending from Diskit Monastery

Nuns at Shey Monastery

High fashion in Hundar

The view from some road, somewhere

Monks celebrate the 800 year anniversary of the Drukpa Lineage

The lush summertime Nubra Valley

Monastery dharma

Local public transport

Cashmere goats at the farm

Crowds listening to the Dalai Lama

Beautiful Ladakhi traditional dress with turquoise

The town of Lamayuru tucked away in the mountains

Myself and my friend Ankit Goyal at Pangong Lake. I rode with Ankit for many days in Ladakh including our numerous failed attempts at reaching the Siachen Glacier. Next time mate!

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Interested in more stories from Ladakh?  Try HERE

TASEARCHLADAKH

I’m back in the sweaty forests of Papua New Guinea again, although this time I’m with the Mountains team.  It’s true.  Strictly speaking we are actually in the jungle, but as it goes, we’re also in the mountains, so for once it looks like rock beats paper on this occasion.

The realization of this particular story began life back in 2007 when Jane Atkins, our researcher for the desert/grasslands programme happened to be flying over this area in a MAF plane on her way back from a shoot for BBC’s South Pacific in the Sepik river basin.  What eagle-eyed Janie spied in the jungle from her window seat prompted an inquisitive investigation that has, 2 years later, led us to happen upon the very same spot.

Now, as far as I can tell, this story has never been documented on film before, so in the interest of suspense and intrigue I’m not going to reveal the details here.  However, I will show you a picture of what Jane, and subsequently our team saw from the air, and maybe you can work it out for yourself…

What could they be?

All around this sparsely inhabited region of dense jungle, the ridges are dotted with unusual gaps in the tree line.  Needless to say, there are always people living close by and I am happy to say that they are very lovely people to work with, albeit a little superstitious in their cultural ways.  Indeed, this part of PNG is famous for its history of cargo cults, a practice that as far as I can see is all but extinct here.

As those anthropologically inclined of you will no doubt know, Cargo cults were the response of many remote tribal communities in the Pacific region to the sudden appearance in the 20th century of technologically superior cultures into their communities.  The cults focused mainly on magical rituals designed to imbue the tribes with the material wealth they saw belonging to the foreign visitors, believing that it was intended as gifts for them by their own particular deities and gods.  Although the cults have vanished, the deities still very much persist.  In fact, they appear to be having a bit of a get-together at our camp as it turns out.  At least that’s what the hushed tones of a few of the shadier locals would have us believe.  Only 10 dollars to keep the gods happy I can report back.

We haven’t paid yet.

Dear god. Please send more Colgate

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Interested in more stories from Papua New Guinea?  Try HERE

TASEARCHPNG

While waiting for the sun to set on a snowy Stonehenge, I received a phone call from Tim,  ’Do you fancy an eight day trip to Dubai to shoot a story on an urban falconer?’  When someone asks you that question as you are sitting in minus 10 degrees cold, there is really only one answer.  So two days later I arrived in Dubai to meet Human Planetʼs Urban team, consisting of Mark Flowers, producer/director, Mark MacEwen, cameraman, the invaluable Andrea Jones, production co-ordinator and Julia Wheeler, the BBCʼs middle east correspondent.

Dubai... Science fact

Hereʼs an interesting fact.   One third of all the worldʼs construction cranes are currently in Dubai.  I imagine itʼs every architectʼs dream to design a building for Dubai.  They come in all shapes and sizes.  Everywhere you look you can see office blocks, skyscrapers, apartments with penthouses that have swimming pools on the 47th floor.   Hotels have motorised gondolas to ferry you from one part of the complex to another. Lamborghinis, Ferraris, Verons and Bentleys sit parked outside hotel lobbies.  I felt a bit like Jim Carreyʼs character in the Truman Show.  Is all this real?  Maybe this is the Dubai experience everyone was telling me about?  Stepping inside the 7 star Burj LʼArab hotel was just that…  Fountains filled with glycerine so that the water doesnʼt separate when it arcs everywhere.  Forty seven sushi chefs in the Japanese restaurant alone…  Well believe it or not, even with all this wealth, technology and state of the art know how, Dubai still suffers from pigeon infestation and there is only one way to clear them out properly.

Did someone say pigeon?

This story centred around falconer David Stead, and the schedule of sequences required by the team were too numerous to mention, suffice to say that David probably experienced what it feels like to be George Clooney.   Every format of camera angle was afforded him, from helicopter cineflex to steadicam, crane, car mount and tripod… I just had to shoot the stills.

And so for the next six days we rose with the light and shot David flying his beautiful falcons against the impressive skyscraper backdrop that is Dubai.  Falcons are the fastest birds of prey in the world,  so filming and shooting them mid flight was fraught with difficulties.  Trying to keep focus with a hand held 400mm lens on a bird that drops out of the sky at over 100 mph is pretty full on.  And I had it easy compared to cameraman Mark, who was having to operate his camera on a tripod.  These birds are like thoroughbred horses and can tire very quickly while being directed for the film crew.  If we averaged about 4 minutes air time per bird, a day’s shooting could be over in just a quarter of an hour. Each falcon had a personality that kept us all entertained.

David is the most extraordinary of falconers, a man who cares passionately about his birds and their welfare.  His ability to control them while they are flying has to be seen to be believed.  On our final afternoon of filming, we witnessed Nimr disappearing for almost two and a half hours while she devoured a pigeon squab, only for her to return to David in almost complete darkness, something that had never been done before.  This in itself was a very special moment as eye contact and visibility is paramount between falcon and handler.

We were also lucky enough to ascend the Burj Khalifa, the tallest man made structure (at almost 3000 ft ) in the world.  So if you are squeamish about heights…..look away now.

... and this isn't even the top

The last time I worked with a camera crew was in Baghdad while covering the immediate fallout from the Iraq war.  This assignment was totally different in every sense but both camera crews strived for the same goal… To tell the story.  The rushes looked amazing and I would like to take this opportunity to thank the Urban team for allowing me to poke my lens in, around and under them all as they were filming, and of course to David and his sporting cast of falcons.

Two weeks into 2010 and I am back from my one month break over the holiday season.  As is the tradition for photographers around this time of year, I have put together a small portfolio of previously unseen pictures from 2009… one from each Human Planet shoot last year.

Yesterday I left my home town of Bristol deep in snow.  Today,  I am filing this post from a hot and humid Changi airport in Singapore on a stop over with the mountains team on our way to the highlands of North Eastern Papua New Guinea where we will be shooting for the next 2 weeks.  Right now, I am also pleased to say that we have British photojournalist Kieran Doherty shooting a high rise story for us in UAE’s capital Dubai with the urban team and he’ll be posting a blog in due course.

Happy New Year to you where ever you are in the world and I hope you enjoy this selection of pictures from a year of travel in 2009.

Looking for a fight in Southern Ethiopia

Dangling from ropes in Galicia

Watching the sun set in the Simien Mountains

Dressing up in Niger

Waiting for the Moon to set in Greenland

Nitpicking in the Central African Republic

Braving a sand storm in Mali

Camel herding in the Gobi Desert

Net fishing in Brazil

Plastering in Djenne

Afternoon napping in Dogon Country

Moving house in Mongolia

Casting a net in Laos

Dancing in Papua New Guinea

Trading snakes in Cambodia

Meditating in Angkor

Scavenging in Kenya

Messing around in Indonesia

Reindeer herding in Norway

Island hopping in Sabah

Deep sea diving in the Philippines

Fox hunting in Mongolia

Extreme barbecuing in Venezuela

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To see more pictures from the Human Planet journey so far, click HERE

There's an eagle in me that wants to soar

There are two frequently quoted buzz words in the Human Planet offices… man, and nature.  By man, we are of course colloquially referring to the human race and not just the male denomination of our species.  By nature, folk here tend to be alluding to animals in the first instance, and then to our environment if the zoological aspects are less obvious.  Not surprisingly, in the 21st century, with many of us completely cut off from our natural environment living in towns and cities, genuine cultural stories of humankind’s reciprocally advantageous relationship with mother nature are becoming few and far between.

And so I find myself once again in Mongolia,  a country that over the last year has completely captured my heart for ever.  From sandy desert to lush grasslands and now to the snowy Altai mountains in the far west, I have arrived at a remote Kazakh community that is home to amongst others, Mongolia’s fabled eagle hunters.

Six months ago, a Human Planet film crew journeyed here in order to film a father’s search for a golden eagle for his young son.  This involved climbing down a portion of a 500 ft cliff face to collect the flightless chick from its nest and then the subsequent documentation of the adoption process during which the two species, man and bird, both impressive hunters at the top of their prospective food chains,  became partners in a mutually beneficial relationship.

That boy was called Berik.  That’s him in the photo at the top of the page hunting foxes for the first time with his majestically grown up golden eagle.

Coming here to photograph this narrative, I imagined that it would be the story of a father’s tutorship of his son in the ways of eagle hunting.  What has actually transpired for me is a beautifully intimate tale of a boy’s relationship with what must surely be one of the most magnificent flying creatures on our planet.  We have travelled on horseback through the mountains watching in awe as Berik and his father hunt with their eagles, tracking animal prints in the snow and then launching their deadly co-workers from these monumental high peaks to capture their prey.

Treading carefully in the Altais

Observing a golden eagle at close quarters is a rare delight for a British fellow like myself.  Prior to this trip I had only ever seen these glorious beasts down the barrel of a very long lens in a Scottish wilderness.  Now I find myself unusually blasé as I sit eating breakfast in one of our gers, a bird perched either side of me, one rubbing its beak repeatedly on my shoulder.  Mongolia is a truly fantastic place.  This will be my last trip here for Human Planet, but I will most certainly be back some time.

Berik's friend and his eagle in their ger

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Interested in more stories from Mongolia?  Try HERE

TASEARCHMONGOLIA

An ethereal underwater ballet at twenty fathoms

Firstly, apologies for missing a week with my posts to this blog.  It was probably a little ambitious of me to expect a decent internet connection from the middle of the South China Sea.  That’s not to say that such a thing is impossible, just extremely inconvenient and quite tricky when you’re living on a small out rigger, equipment perched perilously close to the surf and a plug extension block shared amongst 7 voltage hungry colleagues.

I’m back on terra firma now with a fresh case of land sickness after our amazing time at sea.  It’s tempting to say that I’ve just experienced one of the most memorable weeks of my life, but then again I’m well aware that I keep saying things like that on this blog, so I’ll just tentatively mention that the exceptional people that I’ve met these last days and the things I’ve seen here have affected me very deeply.

To understand the full story of our time here in the Philippines, I’m afraid you’ll have to wait until Human Planet hits the screens next year.  Needless to say, I’m sure you’ll be as amazed as I was at what you will witness happening 120 feet below the surface of the sea.  This particular segment of the Oceans program will also be accompanied by a ‘Making of’ film that will show you how our underwater cameramen managed to capture the astonishing footage contained in the sequence.

The meeting of two diving traditions

My next port of call with be Mongolia again, to the mountains this time.  Stay tuned.

…

Interested in people who work under extreme conditions?  Take a look at Human Planet’s  Mekong fishermen or African honey gatherers.

Take a deep breath...

If you read my last post from here in Sabah then you’ll be well aware that this part of the globe looks very nice from the air.  So, now let me take you through that turquoise sheen to take a peek at what’s going on underneath it all.

It’s no wonder that this part of Borneo is often labelled one of  the best dive spots on the planet.  There is certainly a lot of life for scuba divers to see dotted around the plentiful reefs, something that the Bajau skin divers who have chosen to live in the area know all too well.  We’ve spent the last couple of days with 4 families who live a nomadic life solely on boats.  Devoid of any nationality, these Bajau Laut live a precarious life amidst the region’s ever tightening border controls, a common predicament facing nomadic peoples the world over at this time in history.

On board a Bajau home

In a few days we’ll be leaving Sabah, bound for the Philippines and yet another ocean adventure for Human Planet…  See you there.

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Interested in more stories from Sabah?  Try HERE

TASEARCHSABAH

The coral triangle... where everyone gets a sea view

I must admit, I wasn’t expecting to see this sight when I woke up this morning.  We’ve been suffering the periphery of typhoon Parma since I arrived here in Sabah, shrouding the Celebes sea in rainy grey clouds and dashing any hopes I’ve had of shooting pictures from our helicopter which has spent the last 4 days parked redundantly at the local airfield.  Today however, during an unexpected break in the weather, we managed to get some quality time in the air out searching for Bajau villages…

OMG!  What an incredible sight to behold…  hundreds of small stilted communities perched on reefs a few kilometers out to sea.  One of the most impressive sights I have witnessed on this whole journey so far.

These dwellings belong to amongst others, Bajau sea gypsies who have chosen to live a sedentary life, renouncing their nomadic existence on ocean boats in favour of a front door and neighbours.    Tomorrow we are going to meet them in their homes… and then at work…

Underwater.

. . .

Interested in more stories from Sabah?  Try HERE

TASEARCHSABAH

Indonesia is one of my favourite countries in the world.  I spent a lot of time here in my twenties, just roaming around, visiting as many as I could of the seventeen odd thousand islands that make up this immense archipelago.  Back then, coming to the remote island of Lembata would probably have involved a gruelling week long journey sleeping on the deck of one of Indonesia’s fabled PELNI cruise liners that were the preferred form of long distant transport for backpackers like myself at the time.  That’s not to say that in 2009 getting here is an easy task, not least from Mombasa, my last port of call for Human Planet,  which, as you would imagine, is by no means a well trodden path.  It took four days as it turns out, each one adding to the growing expectation of what I might discover in the famous whaling village of Lamalera, which was to be my final destination. 

Lamalera’s Whaling tradition is quite well documented, often cited as being a good example of a sustainable whale cull due to the local fishermen’s reluctance to embrace modern whaling technology, preferring instead to stick to their traditional method of hunting with paddle-driven peladang’s and bamboo harpoons. The concensus opinion suggests that the best time to come here to experience a whale capture is between the months of May and September when the seas are at their calmest, but in reality, whales are caught here all year round on an as-and-when basis, forming just one portion of the immense plethora of nutritious bounty prised from the waters around this island destined to end up on the dinner plates of Lamalera’s inhabitants.

Arriving at our house overlooking the beach last week I was greeted by BBC cameraman Jon with the surprising news that no whales had actually been caught here for over 2 months.  He arrived a week before me and was already well accustomed to the daily ritual of going to bed at 8pm then rising at 5am to begin 10 hours of searching for ways to pass the time whilst keeping one eye on the ocean for the chance of glimpsing the distant plume from a whale’s exhalation on the horizon and the possibility of filming this age old Lamaleran spectacle.

As I write this, I’ve been here nearly two weeks and still no sign of any whales.  Maybe they finally got wise to the fact that swimming near Lembata is not a good idea at this time of the year.  If they have then they are certainly alone in this wisdom amongst their oceanic co-inhabitants.  Judging by the size of catch that fishermen here are pulling in every morning I think it’s fair to say that the waters around here are not facing any impending environmental catastrophe.  Below is a photo I shot this morning of an average night’s net fishing from a small paddle boat just off the coast from where I’m sitting.  I say average because last week one fisherman came limping home with his boat practically submerged due to its bounty of 7 huge marlin, a couple of them topping 7 foot in length.

Looks like it's sashimi for breakfast again

I can think of worse places to be stuck twiddling my fingers.  Lamalera is a friendly village, currently playing host to no fewer than 3 camera crews from France, Malaysia and the UK as well as an American photographer and myself, which can make for an interesting comedy of errors when anything remotely interesting happens in the vicinity.  Luckily, packs of playing cards are plentiful here and many of us had the foresight to load up our hard drives with unwatched AVIs, the current favourites doing the rounds being the brilliant Flight of the Concords and a beautifully funny documentary called King of Kong which charts the sublime lives of a group of ageing world class classic video gamers in the States

…

3pm every day signals the traditional cut off point for any potential whale capturing activities by the fishermen and offers us all the opportunity to get out of the house and into the ocean for a spot of fun, for myself a chance to live out some personal Big Blue fantasies that I’ve been suppressing for quite a while since the last time I visited a pristine turquoise ocean.  Evidently I’m not alone in this desire, sharing it with amongst others, Paul (below), a lucky intern from the UK working with our underwater team and currently missing the new university term in order to stay on for this ever-expanding waiting game.

9am lecture anyone?