Stanley, Falkland Islands

The first port of call on our cruise was Montevideo, however the first new destination for Mark and me was Stanley, the main settlement on the Falkland Islands, which we visited on February 18. Even before we departed on the cruise we were aware of the uncertainty involved in landing at the Falklands. The seas may be too rough to put out the tenders and the ship might have to bypass the islands. When we were aboard the ship, we heard that the chances of visiting the islands would be 40%. I kept optimistic, yet knew that we might end up not being able to go there.

Fortunately we had calm waters and the tenders were offloaded. There was no coordination in terms of directing passengers off the ship to the tenders, and the long line we were in was directed through a circuitous maze where we ended up right where we started yet suddenly behind a slew of other passengers who had just arrived. Oh great…now we have to wait even longer in line to get off the ship. But the line did move, and we boarded a tender, taking the top deck:

Heading towards Stanley on the east side of East Falkland

Stanley with Christ Church Cathedral and the Whalebone Arch in front of it and Mount William in the background. What is on the left? It looks like a pair of solar-powered ship masts. Close-up of the masts below:

Stanley, with an empty tender heading back

Welcome to the Falklands!

Once we arrived we got settled at a tourist information centre which supplied us with maps of Stanley and of the islands in general. The place was also a souvenir shop and I looked at the books and merchandise but wouldn’t buy anything until the end of our visit. We also made enquiries about bus excursions but didn’t want to take one just yet as we wanted to go on some hikes around Stanley first. Mark had printed out some hiking maps before we left home. He had the foresight to do so as these maps, which he had found on-line, were also available in print in the visitor centre but when we got there they were all gone. There was another cruise ship in port and they must have cleared the racks out. Fortunately we knew what we were going to do during our day in and around Stanley.

As we walked through the parking lot at the start of our hike I, a licence plate nut, had to snap a few photos. In the Falklands, white plates are for the front of vehicles:

and yellow for the rear:

We saw Range Rovers all over Stanley. Everywhere:

Different kinds of rear plates:

The main street of Stanley is Ross Road which runs along the waterfront:

Across Stanley Harbour along the length of Peninsula Camber you can see white stones that spell out the names of British patrol vessels that protected the islands. This shot captures the names of BEAGLE and PROTECTOR.

One of my favourite places to visit is a post office, and I planned to send eight postcards during my time here. I usually write essays on the back of postcards but this time my messages had to be brief as I didn’t want to spend all of my time inside when I’d rather be exploring. I had my eight addresses with me and perused the postcards for sale. When I enquired about stamps, the postal clerk was kind and patient as she showed me a binder with all the different examples to choose from. It cost 80p to mail a postcard anywhere, and instead of choosing a single 80p stamp, I selected four which all added up to 80p. That meant I’d have to produce enough saliva to affix a total of 32 stamps to eight postcards. I sent cards to Canada, the US, Finland, Belgium and Tristan da Cunha. I love to decorate postcards with stamps and while I know I like to write long messages, the abundance of stamps limits the space I have to write. After I addressed the cards I wrote only a few sentences on each.

It was cold and windy enough to need to wear a toque, and I wore one of my Tristan da Cunha toques on Stanley. The postal clerk took one look at it and told me that she was from St. Helena. “You’re a Saint!” I exclaimed, knowing the islanders’ preferred demonym, as no one from the island, or from Tristan da Cunha, ever refers to them(selves) as St. Helenian. She said that she had never been to Tristan and I told her that I would love to visit her home island one day. I asked about the mail route these postcards would take. She said that mail was picked up each Tuesday and Friday and flown to London. From there it is distributed around the world. Imagine the journey the card to Tristan would have to take! Although the distance between the Falklands and Tristan is “only” 4004 km, the postcard would first have to travel to London, then back south to Cape Town, South Africa, and await the departure of the next ship leaving for Tristan which is on April 15. It should arrive at Tristan a week after that. By the way when I went to the Central Library this past Thursday (March 12) to do some scanning, I saw a former colleague who I wrote to from Stanley. She had received my postcard.

I am mailing the eight postcards from the pillar box outside the Stanley post office.

Mark visited the local museum for half an hour while he left me at the post office. I was done by the time he returned and we embarked on our journey.

Looking east along Ross Road to St. Mary’s Catholic Church

The navigator and his map

Local sentiment outside a home on Dairy Paddock Road: Our Islands, Our Choice! and Living Peacefully

Looking north on Dairy Paddock Road. That side of the street was lined with skeletons of whales.

We had read that all land mines had been cleared but still saw these signs. There was a military presence in Stanley and saw soldiers in their vehicles on the roads. We also saw vehicles and equipment lying about in unexpected places:

This is the best shot I could get of the Falklands flag flying fully unfurled

Government House

1982 Liberation Memorial

Bust of Prime Minister Thatcher on Thatcher Drive

We stopped into the offices of the Penguin News, the Falklands’ weekly newspaper, and chatted with office manager Fran Biggs. The paper is really an unstapled full-colour twenty-pager in magazine format. It retails for £2 but we could pick up free copies, dated February 6 and 13, from the office. The headline on the February 6 edition: “Former Leisure Centre employee pleads guilty to voyeurism”. We returned to the harbour to purchase bus tickets for a ride out to Gypsy Cove (£10). The forecast had been for rain–as it always rains at this time of year in the Falklands throughout the day–but when we left the ship it looked clear, so I left my raincoat and pants in the cabin. The sky was blue with some clouds, but later became grey and cloudier. While we were aboard the bus the sky opened and the rain came gushing. When we got to our destination, only fourteen minutes away, the driver let us stay on the bus for a little while, but he had to continue on his route back to Stanley. Of all the times to leave my rain gear behind! And I had specifically brought my raincoat and pants for this trip to the Falklands! I did have a hood on my orange jacket, but Mark had nothing except a plastic bag, which he fashioned (I use the term loosely) into an impermeable garment:

On the way to Gypsy Cove

Yorke Bay

Magellanic penguins breed at Gypsy Cove. On our walk we only saw three penguins, one of which is in the shot above. We did not want to pay for an expensive excursion to the tip of the cove where reportedly hundreds can be seen. I am not a penguin enthusiast like some of the cruise passengers and in fact I am a bit jaded about penguins anyway as I saw plenty of them on Nightingale Island (northern rockhoppers) and Boulders Beach (African), but I think Mark would have liked to see more than three.

Diddle-dee bushes

Hebe Street was named after the brig Hebe, which arrived in the Falkland Islands in January 1842.

Outside Stanley Cemetery. Look at how sunny it is now. After the downpour my jeans and shoes were soaked but by the time we got the tender back to the ship, we had almost dried off completely.

With so many Range Rovers on the islands, it’s no surprise we’d stumble across a place like this.

We returned to the visitor centre and bought a few souvenirs. During my stay on the islands I got three small jars of diddle-dee jam, a couple postcards for myself and some books.

About to board the tender back to the ship