2013: Falkland Islands; Port Stanley

Day 33. 7 February

Falkland Islands; Port Stanley

British Overseas Territory

First view of the day was of low land passing by, or more properly, we are passing by low land. At this point the ship is entering an inlet on the East Island of the Falkland Islands, heading for Port Stanley, the capitol and largest community. This lies on an inner bay or harbor. We anchored in the outer harbor at 0615 and found we had a pleasant view of the town on the other side of the channel entrance. The Seabourn Sojourn came in after us and dropped her hook upstream of us. Our tenders began shuttling passengers ashore as soon as the ship had been cleared by the authorities.

Once ashore I had to gawk at the surroundings. By all appearances this is a small English sea side community complete with left side driving, red phone booths, pubs, Land Rovers, “give way” road signs and people with British accents. The current population of the Falklands is 2,841.

We found Stella, our driver and first leg of the trip guide who ushered us into a small van and drove us through town (6 blocks) and into the country. The countryside is devoid of trees and is mostly rocky, hilly, covered with short scrub and grasses, and populated here and there with a few horses, cattle and sheep. We traveled down a new paved road (roads are new here since the conflict) which took us safely between the minefields. (There are also some minefields along some beaches but the penguins are too light to set off the triggers so they have a “protected” habitat after all.) Not far from town we met Pete and Maggie who had driven their Land Rover 20 kilometers from their farm in the “camp” to take us the rest of the way on our pursuit of penguins. A non-mined area, we were assured.

So we bounced across country on a large private farm to the shore of another inlet, a place called Bluff Cove Lagoon. When we extracted ourselves from the rover we almost blew away. One of those days that is so windy it is very difficult to hold a camera steady. A tripod would blow over. “A light breeze” Pete called it. But there were penguins; King, Gentoo and Magellanic. With curiosity we watched each other for awhile, the humans taking pictures. The wind finally drove us over a low ridge where there was a small cabin museum, a loo and the Sea Cabbage Cafe. There is no electricity out here, by the way and the museum was heated with a peat burning pot bellied stove. In the Cafe local ladies had prepared home made scones and jams, pies, cookies and other sweets for us. Maggie played Falkland tunes on her accordion while outside the surf crashed, the wind blew and the penguins waddled about. I bought her CD. What a friendly bunch of people here.

The Museum

Maggie autographs her CD

The route was retraced without discovering any mines but with a great chat with Pete about everything from wool to squid, importing sheep to exporting fish, Argentinian land mines to potato soup. All with a smile, laughing and teasing while being thrown about inside the rover.

Back to the road where we were met by Stella and her van for the ride back to town. Our search in town for a squid lunch was unsuccessful, though the fish 'n chips at the Victory Pub were very tempting. Time was running out though and we had to find penguin ear-rings like Stella's. The shops we visited were able to provide the ear rings and a few gifts to take home as well as sincere personal accounts of the Conflict. (The Falklands War, 1982.)

High winds slowed the transfer of passengers from shore to ship and when this was completed at 1620, we departed on schedule and without a single injury. Our officers and crew are excellent.