December 21, 2002

Port Stanley, Falkland Islands

Sunrise: 4:36am
Sunset: 9:02pm

The first thing that strikes you about Port Stanley is that it is clearly British. In case you missed it at the first two islands, this was wild land (no aboriginal inhabitants) that was “colonized” by the British to serve as ports and refueling stops for the whalers. There is nothing even remotely Spanish colonial here. The language is English. Period. So why on earth did the Argentines think it belonged to Argentina???

Remnants of the 1982 Falklands War abound. From the beautiful beaches which are now inaccessible, to the bomb squad cars, and the barbed wire, it is clear that a war was fought here and the islands have not fully recovered. The Argentines mined the land, and appear to have “lost” the maps. The beaches are safe for penguins and birds, but that’s it.

Of course, for the first time, remnants of the incredibly gruesome whaling days abound as well. There are descriptions in old sea logs of whales as far as the eye can see. There are tales of sailors being unable to sleep from the constant calls and blows of the whales. We have been at sea for three days and have not seen a single whale. Yet, the Japanese still whale. DNA testing of whale meat in Japanese stores proves that they kill anything they want – including Blue Whales. Hard to believe… Heartbreaking and sickening actually.

Anyway… Driving around the island, you notice that peat is quite common. Homes are allocated about 120 yards of peat per year, harvested on “Peat Cutting Monday”. The sense of community appears to be quite strong and the people we chatted with were all quite friendly – and obviously love living here. As before, we can understand why. We had lunch in a local fish and chips restaurant and spent a few hours writing Christmas cards. The cards were mailed (by Arnie of course!) at the Post Office. We know they’ll be late arriving, but we expect that the lateness will be forgiven when folks notice where they’re coming from!

A walk along the bay, past the monument to the heroes of the Falkland War, to the Falkland Islands Museum is pleasant despite the rain. We also enjoyed walking past a house with a yard full of gnomes that Arnie just had to visit. As with gnomes everywhere, we heard that one of them has run away from home and is traveling around the world.

The weather was perfect as we left the safe harbour of Port Stanley and embarked for South Georgia.

Next - Two days at sea en route to South Georgia

Click on any slide for closeups and a view of our Port Stanley highlights.