But first of all, as an update from Boxing Day because as soon as we had rounded Cape Horn and moved into the South Atlantic in the lee of the South American continent, the skies cleared, temperatures began to climb a little and the wind dropped to something a little more manageable. Pressure was rising and hopes were high that we would be able to get into the Falklands as often the winds are too high for ships to anchor and for their tenders to ferry passengers ashore.
Any fears were soon dispelled when we awoke on Saturday morning as the sea was relatively calm and there was little wind...the only fly in the ointment was a steady and thick drizzly rain. Our spirits were raised further as we spotted a couple of penguin colonies on the shore as we sailed towards our anchorage at Port Stanley. Undeterred by the precipitation, we caught the tender into the port and, with another couple from Latvia, were soon climbing aboard a 4x4 and setting off with our driver for our day's expedition. (Incidentally I think that the Falklands is the place where all the Landrovers ever built come to die!).
Our destination was North Pond, a sandy inlet at the North Western point of the Eastern Island. The entire two hour journey was made on nothing but gravel tracks and by off-roading (in the truest sense of the word). Along the way we passed cordoned off minefields, radar posts and even the rusting wreckage of an Argentinian chinook which had been strafed during the 1982 war.
However the drive was worth every penny for at the inlet were hundreds, if not thousands of penguins. There were some Magellanic, the same as we had seen on Magdalena Island, but mostly they were Gentoo but also and luckily, just two or three pairs of King penguins, easily identifiable by their larger size and distinctive orange flashes. The fact that we were getting soaked by the rain did not matter. We watched these comical and fascinating birds for an hour or more as they played in the surf, built nests, preened, sheltered and tended to their chicks in the rookery, slid down to the sea on their bellies and enacted mini marches of the penguins in columns of five or six. Utterly delightful!
Unfortunately, all good things come to an end and all too soon we had to make the return drive back to Port Stanley. Our driver gave us a brief tour of the town and pointed out some of the geographical features that had become household names during the conflict before dropping us off so that we could have a quick look around by ourselves. Thankfully, just as we got back, the rain stopped.
As for the Islands themselves, apart from Port Stanley, there is nothing at all here. If you think that the Yorkshire Moors on a wet Tuesday afternoon in January are bleak, then you haven't been to the Falklands. Granted, there are a few isolated farms, but the vegetation is so poor that the farmers talk in terms of acres per sheep rather than sheep per acre. The land is a mixture of peat bog and exposed boulder fields and there are no trees, so it gave a completely new insight into just how difficult it would have been for the British forces to traverse. Why anyone would want to invade in the first place is quite beyond me. (Oh, did someone mention the word "oil"?)
Port Stanley (or simply Stanley as it now seems to be called) is interesting, rather larger than I had imagined and quintessentially British. There are no foreign accents to be heard, the currency is familiar, the letter boxes and telephone boxes are a comforting shade of red and the quayside pub was packed with locals enjoying a Sunday afternoon pint.
We did a little bit of souvenir shopping including buying the obligatory tee shirt and once again caught one of the last tenders back to the ship, rather damp but with heads and cameras full of wonderful memories.
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