As a relatively new member I’ve no idea whether any SOTA DXpeditions have ever taken place, other than what I have seen more recently specifically Iceland and Svalbard (which I never knew existed until 18 months ago).
Anyone got anything planned or on their bucket list? When you start exploring how many summits we have listed that have never been activated the wonderlust kicks in big time!
Mark.
I have a little experience navigating and driving boats 
. All we need is someone with a suitable boat and a chef and those elusive island SOTAs are ours! 
Sardinia is a big island full of unactivated summits and not too difficult to get to from anywhere in Europe. If the virus hadn’t struck we would probably have visited it by now as we’ve already visited Corsica (pre-SOTA days) in our campervan (RV). It’s still on the bucket list.
Snapshot below. Some of them are remote, but not all. Sicily has a lot of unactivated summits too but most of them are only one or two points and in the rarely visited interior of the island. Most folk live near the coast.
Cyprus is on my list with lots of SOTA summits and good weather for most of the year and I do like Greek food!
Planned? No. Well ideas but nothing more. There are a bazillion summits to activate and complete but what would be nice is to find enough people to make bagging the 5 island summits off the South of Barra possible. Muldonach, Sandray, Pabbay, Mingulay and Berneray. Barra is reasonably trivial to reach so these should be reasonably easy to do. Just the cost of hiring boats etc. and organising the landing such that everyone can activate and chase every summit. Because let’s be honest, just activating them is not going to cut the mustard, you want to complete them as well.
Then there’s activating a least one summit on all the Canary Islands, Madeira and its islands, The Azores etc. They can get rolled into good family vacations as well. Oh, and Alaska. It seems the only way to work any station, SOTA or not in Alaska is go there and have a QSO with a local because I’ve managed to miss out working Alaska for the last 31.5 years of having a licence!
I can heartily recommend Sicily. I was there for a week in October with the family - however was strictly limited by order to just three summits 
. Spectacular scenery with historic landmarks often located on SOTA summits - It’s not often you get a Greek theater within the activation zone, like at I/SI-153 Serra Palazzo!
Or activation zones in the middle of hill top towns like Calascibetta I/SI-114, as viewed from Torre Pisana I/SI-090 in nearby Enna.
Enna from Torre Pisana I/SI-090
Not many points but the cannoli, arancini and Messina beer soften the blow.
Hi John, you tried, cheers 
cheers Geoff vk3sq
I’d be interested in joining a remote SOTA tour.
I’ve spent many hours on SOTL.AS looking at Iceland. There are several target rich areas that would allow multiple summits in a day and some great S2S / chasing activity. Iceland has enough variability for differing fitness levels.
Are you thinking rare grids / summits, a bunch of first activations, points/elevation factors?
Summer 2023 (july/aug/sept) would be easy for me to participate and help plan.
Mike
VE7ESE
Can the boat go out to St.Kilda once it’s finished playing around the islands off of Barra? May as well get 'em all done!
Conachair on St. Kilda can be done on the standard day-trip boat . The others are much more serious and the stacs need special permission to land and climb. Oh, and suitable weather!
I would certainly be interested in a SOTA trip to Barra or any of the Scottish Islands containing SOTA summits!
+1
Spent 5 days on St. Kilda in 2012 doing IOTA, I did not know about SOTA then 
Declan
My boot is swinging scarily close to that bucket I’d be up for anything that my health and strength allowed.
I can cook a mean pancake 
73 Paul G4MD
Islands are good fun for SOTA DXpeditions. My best ones being:
Ailsa Craig: Ailsa Craig SS-246
Bardsey Isalnd: Mynydd Enlli NW-072
Sark: Le Moulin GU-001
Probably our biggest and best, and the nearest that we could loosely describe as a “DXpedition” (as it took considerable planning - logistics, permits etc) was El Teide EA8/TF-001 on Tenerife Island, 3715m ASL.
http://tomread.co.uk/el_teide_tf-001.htm
On November 19-23, I plan a short trip to Malta and Sardinia. So on Saturday, November 20, I plan to activate two peaks in Malta (9H) and on November 22 in Sardinia (IS0). In Sardinia, I have not selected any of the summits yet, but I would like them to be not activated so far. While I have no concerns about activating in Malta, in the case of Sardinia, I do not know how it will be with the weather. The closest period is the “rainy season” in Sardinia. I do not know what conditions prevail in the mountains then, and this is an island and relatively high mountains, which can cause quite significant temperature differences, wind and rain.
Certainly it will not be a SOTA marathon, such as we recently did with Miłosz SP9PND in september’21, where in 4 days we activated 10 summits in LY/YL/ES, driving by car 3400 km.
There is also the issue of the growing 4th-wave and the likelihood of introducing new restrictions that will prevent movement in the mountains.
73 Jacek SQ9MDN
It would be interesting if any SOTA DXpeditions to the St Kilda Islands will result in the 2 sea stacks (GM/SI-204 and GM/SI-214) getting activated for SOTA.
Jimmy M0HGY
I guess Mark might have been inspired by this video:
Not in the video but Jan Mayen island as part of Svalbard is quite remote.
Beerenberg - Haakon VII Toppen 2277m in that conditions will require some proper mountaineering …
https://sotl.as/summits/JX
And it looks like access for tourist is kind of prohibited but possible with permits.
https://www.summitpost.org/beerenberg/465678
So something a bit more exotic than Malta or Sardinia
From what I’ve seen on YouTube, the sea stacks would require specialist climbing gear, or a helicopter. But the big problem is the fact that the whole area is one of the most important bird sanctuaries in the UK, if not the EU. For that reason, helicopter flights are subject to additional restrictions and overflying a sea stack is probably out of the question. They are also thick with guano, so there is considerable risk of infection, just like on Rockall.
If you can pull a few strings (no idea which ones), you might get a boat landing on Boraraigh, which has been done in the past. Landing on Boraraigh is very difficult and requires favourable conditions at sea, so it tends to be a spur of the moment thing rather than well planned in advanced. As for Soaigh, I have no idea. But like I say, the birds are the main obstacle.
73 de OE6FEG
Matt
The RSPB have given permission for the sea stacks to be climbed in the past.
