Blogs from Falkland Islands, South America
February 14th 2012
After rounding the Horn and thereby becoming “Masters of the Seven Seas,” we made our first stop in Argentina at Ushuaia which is also the Capital of the Malvinas. Ushuaia is the southern-most city in the world and its name means the End of the World. The town started out as a prison colony and has grown into a thriving business center with fish processing and computer assembly plants ringing the Beagle Channel. The Malvinas include the disputed Falklands Islands. Argentina still hopes to “free” the Falklands from what they consider the British Imperialists. Right now there are protests and port blockages by Argentinians because of increased tensions between the two countries. Fortunately the Mariner does not fly a Union Jack. One thing we have found in traveling around the very Catholic countries of South America ... read more
January 19th 2012
Thursday 19th January 2012 Yes I know its Thursday because the mat in the lift says so. It’s also a sea day, which means we do not see anything but sea! We are on our way to Puerto Madryn on the Argentinian coast. Each cabinet has TV and the best channel is the one that shows the Captain’s view ahead plus the navigational details plus maps. We are now 47 degrees south so have come a long way from Antarctica. The sea is relatively calm and has been for the past 2 days, which meant that yesterday we were able to dock at Port Stanley in The Falklands. It was a glorious sunny day – it seems that the Falklands have had an unusually good summer. Brian had a visit with the medics to the hospital ... read more
January 19th 2012
THE FALKLAND ISLANDS I had a 6:00am wake up to a beautiful sunny day. We are tendering to Port Stanley and the harbor can be very rough for the half hour trip, but not today. I dressed warmly as the weather can turn in a minute but for now it is beautiful. We are assigned to our 4 x 4 and met Robin, our driver and guide. She is a very young grandmother who works in the supermarket. She just lost 9 stone on a diet of chocolate, disco and vodka. It worked for her. The first few miles were on tarmac. We passed a military contingent on a land mine clearing mission. Mines from the war are often found and well-paid volunteers from Zimbabwe, anxious to earn hard currency in a country where inflation is ... read more
March 21st 2011
Fri 4th Feb Port Stanley, Falkland Islands Sparrow Cove penguin experience Like many other people i think, until Maggie’s involvement in defending these islands from the Argentinean invasion, I had never heard of Port Stanley. Murdo of course knew about this region due to his fathers tales of his whaling trips to Antarctica. So for different reasons we both were looking forward to our stay today. A tender boat took us over to the island to commence our excursion to see a colony of gentoo penguins. Having stepped onto the island, we felt like we were back home !!! The similarity of the terrain to the Scottish highlands was uncanny with it's small farms nestling amongst wild backdrops of rocks, heather and peaty ground. As we walked our feet sprang in a comfy familiar way. It ... read more
February 4th 2011
Due to weather conditions, we went to the main island of the Falklands yesterday and won't be visiting the west island at all. I had been looking forward to that because it supposedly had lots of penguins roaming around that you could just walk amongst. Oh, well. Now we will be in Ushuaia a day earlier and rounding Cape Horn before a big storm arrives. Did you realize there were fewer than 2000 people living in the Falklands when the war happened? (in 1982) About the same number of soldiers were killed. Seems an idiotic waste of lives and money. There are still minefields all over the place, but they are fenced off with skull and crossbones signs. Port Stanley, on the main island, reminded me a lot of Nisswa. Teeming with gift shops, but with ... read more
January 28th 2010
What can we say about the Falklands? The pictures are the real highlight. We flew in from Punta Arenas in Chile on Dec 19th and were picked up at Mount Pleasant airport (a military airport where you aren’t allowed to take photos) by Ken who drove us to Darwin house where we spent our first night. This was our first experience with Falkland island roads, which are mostly gravel and very dusty. The landscape was absolutely windswept with no trees in sight except around the settlements. As you can see from the photos, there are gorse, Diddly dee, tussock grass and sheep as far as the eye can see! After meeting the people who were also doing a week-long tour and our hostess Sheena, we had a quick cup of tea and set out to explore ... read more
January 28th 2010
Here is a selection of Rachel's photos, again mainly to prove that Chuck was there too!... read more
January 19th 2010
The Falkland Islands is not a place you can drive to for the weekend. It is located about 300 miles from the nearest South American coast. The island came to international attention when Argentine invaded the island in 1982. A British expeditionary force lander some seven weeks later and after much fighting Argentine surrendered June 14, 1982. There are remnants of the fighting on the island and one of the areas, Bluff Cove, that we visited had warning signs that unexplored ordnance might be present. A notice was posted late in 2009 that a British firm had been hired to clear mines in the area. We arrived at Stanley via a cruise ship which is the most predominate methods of getting to Stanley although there is an airport on the Falkland Islands. We had attempted to ... read more
January 9th 2010
We have arrived back in Ushuaia where the temperature has reached the tropical heights of 9C , this is high summer here - one month ago, when we were skinny dipping, it was 2C. We are back here to meet with up with Dave & Di and board the Professor Multanovskiy, a small Russian ice-strengthened ship, that will be our home for the next 19 days. The first task after we board our ship and pull away from Ushuaia is the Safety Drill, which involves us all donning our life vests and cramming into the 2 life boats, its very snug and that's without the crew in there with us - its a good ice-braking exercise (no pun intended!!). That over we can retire to the bar to meet our fellow passengers. Out of 49 passengers ... read more
