Day 4 – Stanley, the Capital
At 6am, we approached Stanley, named after Lord Stanley, Secretary of State for War and the Colonies. Unlike the Lord who never once visited the place named after him, we were guided by smaller pilot boats into the inlet that was once a hub for repairing battered ships, mass producing sheep and boiling down whales and seals for oil before it transitioned into a classic British settlement in 1842.
On arrival, we had the choice of either making photos of a colony of Magellanic Penguins and other birds at Gypsy Cove or understand the politics around the Falkland Islands. I chose the latter and walked towards the western end of the island because I wanted to get my steps in and work my brain. I wandered past vibrant houses, the quiet cemetery and the southernmost cathedral. I was taken aback by the unusual structure in front of the church only to discover it was actually massive jawbones of blue whales. I passed by lingering remnants of the town’s history along with the post office, a Standard Chartered branch, the bronze bust of Margaret Thatcher on Thatcher Drive unveiled in 2015 and the Government House, not open to the public.
My primary mission was to educate myself on the 1982 invasion at the Historic Dockyard Museum. I realized I lacked the attention span required to process all that trauma so I retreated to the museum’s social archives: observing life and judging the fashion choices of rural islanders in black and white photos. I eventually found the Reclus Hut, a rebuilt tribute to polar exploration and of men who traveled to the ends of the earth to winter at Cape Reclus on the Antarctic Peninsula in 1957 and do survey work. It has been two years since my visit to Portal Point, seeing the original preserved hut was surreal, considering my last memory of the site was the original foundation overrun by bickering Antarctic fur seals.
Day 5 & 6 – at Sea
We spent the next two days lounging around the ship sitting through lectures, movies and documentaries. The windows were constantly being sprayed, the outside deck flooded as we ploughed through massive swells. Going outside was unimaginable. Even with stabilizers working to counter the roll, the sea was relentless but not for the majestic albatrosses seen through blurred windows as they soared elegantly. Wandering albatrosses are the largest flying birds and often appear during storms, they soar and swoop without flapping their wings taking advantage of the wind and waves.
As the albatrosses glided by the ship’s bow, the bird watchers were frantically calling out five different species. To me, they were a blur of identical giants. I couldn’t tell the Royal from a Wandering Albatross, let alone differentiate the granular details between young and old or male and female. The data overload combined with the rolling sea left me feeling dizzy.
As we neared the inhospitable “croissant-shaped” South Georgia islands, a British Overseas Territory in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean, it was mandatory to sit through an essential briefing about how to behave when we land on the islands. Regardless of how adorable we found the penguins, we had to keep our cool. Shouting in excitement was out of the question and it was imperative we “bio cleaned” our outfits before every landing. It’s a delicate ecosystem, the last thing it needs is a bunch of humans introducing cross contamination.
Throughout the day before landing, the thrill of seeing Humpback whales eventually evaporated as sightings became a routine part of the day. Hundreds of fur seals began to porpoise alongside us while a gang of giant petrels glided in the wind.
The storm finally subsided and by 6am the following morning, we caught our first glimpse of the jagged coastline softened by an intermittent veil of mist.
CRAYSCAPE 