After two years of planning and training, we sailed off from South America, across the infamous Drake Passage.

Sailing past the Antarctic Circle, we carried on down to Marguerite Bay before the ice made it impossible to sail further.

We then made a little bit of history – becoming the first British people to freedive in Antarctica.

Up close and personal with icebergs, penguins and leopard seals… this short film dives deeper.

Swimming with humpback whales in Antarctica was extraordinary, but somewhat impeded by algae released from the ice making visibility underwater difficult.

Into warmer, clearer waters in Tonga then for an expedition to track down, swim and dance with more humpbacks.

Nature can deliver spectacles far greater than we could ever hope to create ourselves artificially.

Perhaps the most dramatic of these are tornadoes. I joined one of the most prolific storm chasers in the world – driving thousands of miles across the US, witnessing spectacular weather, and, yes – we found a tornado too.

Preferring the backcountry to ski resorts, we borrowed a helicopter and went exploring the snow across Aoraki / Mount Cook in New Zealand to experience some deep, isolated, southern hemisphere powder – from gravity-defying snow-capped mountain ridges to stunning snow-filled valleys.

Whale sharks are enormous, and they drift through the ocean slowly and gracefully.

Much is still unknown about these enormous fish, and so, I joined the Maldives Whale Shark Research Group in the Indian Ocean to help them study and research their behaviour.

Freediving with giant manta rays and joining pods of wild dolphins an added bonus.

As someone happier in the sea than on land, I joined Freedive UK’s expedition to the Andaman Sea in Thailand.

We spent a few weeks living with the last remaining Moken Sea Nomads to understand their challenges with the modern world and to help them re-engage with their freediving history that dates back thousands of years.

“Have you ever been freediving in Iceland?”, this simple question I was once asked resulted in an equally short response: “When shall we go?”.

Freediving in Iceland has its issues, but with water having visibility as clear as the air above it, it’s worth the effort.

Since that first excursion, its lakes and coast have become a regular destination – to just enjoy, and as a training ground for longer, colder expeditions.