I’m still in the frozen south. We’re sailing off the coast of Antarctica, though we’ve rowed in to a few places and walked about. I’d like to go to the hot water beach at Deception Island, but it may not be possible.

For technological reasons I can’t post pictures at the moment, and for personal reasons (I don’t fancy anyone on the crew) there seems to be nothing very sexual about the Antarctic environment.

This isn’t disenchantment. This is one of the wildest places on earth, and the most beautiful, in an unearthly way. The white cliffs, twisted out of frozen water, against greyer skies and grey-white water, are eldritch, weird. I love it here.

I should be telling you ghost stories, with banshees, sirens and other such dangerous mythical women. But those myths aren’t from here, and there are no people here to create their own myths. So those personages don’t belong.