Today is our first real sunny day in Antarctica, after 14 days of bad weather. Everything looks different, amazingly beautiful. Shiny icebergs in turquoise water in front of white glaciers and peaks, with the immense ice plateau in the background.

We spent the last two days scouting the whole coast between 66 30 S and 65 30 S for landing spots, but were not successful. Either there was too much ice on the coast, or no suitable landing spot, or the mountains too technical or too dangerous with overhanging seracs. So we gave up on the idea to attempt further first ascents of virgin peaks. Instead we will take advantage of the good weather forecast over the next two days and try to climb Mt Peary or Mt Matin, both over 2000m high and further inland, from an anchorage near the Ukrainian base Vernadsky.