Blogs from East Falkland, Falkland Islands, South America - page 2

It was Country and Western night last night. The activities kicked off with a Country and Western trivia. The other members of our trivia team weren't interested in this so Roisin and I slipped unnoticed alone in to Explorers Lounge and decided to play the trivia for fun hoping that no-one would recognise us as part of the know-it-alls and ask us to join their team only to find out that we are crap at music!! I did calculate that if we had put either Hank Williams or Garth Brooks as the answer to every question, we would have scored 8 points (out of 40) As it turns out, we didn't use this tactic but coincidentally scored 8 anyway (had we have been playing!!) Once the trivia was over we decided not to stay for the ... read more

What an interesting day! The seas are quite calm when we get up about 7 am, and by 9 the ship has reached the Falkland Islands. The ship is too big for the inner harbour so we are tendered to shore in life boats. We are in Port Stanley by 10:30. The Falklands (Islas Malvinas to Argentinians) are a remote group of two main islands and many hundreds of smaller ones in the South Atlantic some 900 k off the Argentine coast. The entire is population is 2500, and 2000 people live in the capital and only town, Port Stanley. There is a road linking Port Stanley to the military airport but no other roads. Residents use 4x4s and boats to get to all other parts of the islands. The primary industry is sheep farming, primarily ... read more

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

Geo: -51.701, -57.8492January is summer in the Falklands, but this place is not a place to sunbathe. It has a lot of rain and temperatures hover in the 50s. We were lucky in that it remained dry for the day we were there, but we had to wrap up against the wind. The ship berthed just outside the inlet to Port Stanley and we were tendered over to the dock. First impressions were that we were on the Yorkshire Moors but surrounded by water. Heather and rocks with few roads most of which were built by the British after the conflict. Stanley contains most of the population but it is small and walkable. We visited the Christchurch cathedral with flags and memorials to the fallen. Further along the road there is the post office with red ... read more

We sailed into the Port William, a large inlet on the east coast of East Falkland island, shortly after sunrise. The Falkland Islands are an archipelago in the South Atlantic Ocean, located 300 miles from the coast of Argentina. They consist of two main islands, East Falkland and West Falkland, together with 776 smaller islands. Stanley, on East Falkland, is the capital. The islands are a self-governing Overseas Territory of the United Kingdom. In 1982 the islands were invaded by Argentina, precipitating the two-month-long undeclared Falklands War between Argentina and the United Kingdom, which resulted in the defeat and withdrawal of Argentine forces. To visit Stanley we tendered through a strait called "the Narrows" into Stanley Harbour. Stanley is the capital and only true city in the Falkland Islands. It is located on the isle of ... read more