18th Feb - An afternoon of ice climbing

Chris here: We're still anchored at Prospect Point. This morning the weather was bad with quite a lot of rain. After the exertions of yesterday no one was particularly keen to go out climbing or skiing in rain and wind.. A late breakfast and lazy morning was in order. Everyone caught up with writing journals and reading books. Steve the skipper has told us that we are running short of fresh water. This may seem ridiculous when we are surrounded by the largest reserve of fresh water on the planet - unfortunately it's all frozen and takes a lot of energy and effort to melt.
There are some areas of melt water, but we cannot use this as we don't want to risk drinking penguin poo no matter how dilute - could cause a dose of runny Antarctic tummy. The yacht has an osmosis based water making facility but this only works well in the tropics and down here with an average water temperature of zero degrees it only generates 35 litres per hour. The
result of this is that we have to conserve water even more - no more showers, brushing teeth in wine and having seals lick the plates clean - OK so I'm joking about the teeth and seals but we have to be careful with water. The good side of this is that we all smell so much that any
reduction in personal hygiene is hardly noticeable. Anyway, enough of the bad stuff, the good news is that after lunch the sun came out and we decided to go ice climbing.

A short ride in the dinghy brought us to the foot of an ice cliff at the end of a glacier. Guy, Mark and Luis set up top ropes and we all had a fun time climbing vertical ice in the sun against the backdrop of sea, icebergs and beautiful mountains - fantastic. We all enjoyed ourselves so much that we forgot to return to the yacht for afternoon tea and scones - this Antarctic exploration requires sacrifices to be made! However, returning to the Evohe, Chloe had prepared a substantial dinner of stew and mashed potatoes, just what was needed after an afternoon of exertion. One of the traditions of the expedition so far has been each evening debrief of the days activities followed by a brief for the next day. As the days have gone by these occasions have become more informal to the point today where in the middle of the briefing someone shouted that the views were fantastic outside. We all walked out and started taking photos of the
scenery - icebergs and mountains reflected in the calm sea as the sun set.
This has been the most spectacular evening for scenery we have had since being here. The guides managed to coax us into the saloon and finished the briefing once the temperature dropped well below freezing. So tomorrow we
look forward to good weather and a long day ski touring with first ascents and first descents. Until tomorrow.......