Our cruise to Antartica took us the long way, which we were really excited about. Our first destination (after 1 and a half days at sea) was the Falklands Islands (Islas Malvinas for the Argentines). There are a couple of things you should know about the Falklands (and traveling to them):
- They have been disputed territory between Argentina and the Falklands (technically British territory, but the Brits say they let the Islands run themselves) since the mid-1800s.
- In 1982, Argentina invaded (in an effort to improve national morale), with a moderately bloody result (a couple hundred fatalities, in an island range with about 3500 inhabitants) that was nullified when the Brits responded with strength and retook the islands.
- At the end of February (when we visited), everyone believed that the Falklands were full of huge oil reserves. Kristina (Kirchner, current Argentinian president), was once again raising the Argentinian “territorial integrity and proximity” claim to the Falklands, which has Falklands residents in an uproar.
- In fact, when I asked a shop owner what she thought of the oil prospects, all she could talk about was “her” (meaning Kristina); she didn’t have anything to say about the actual possibility of oil.
- Note, as of yesterday, drilling in the Falklands seemed to be producing poor results (Source: BBC).
As a result, it’s very difficult to travel from Argentina to the Falklands. There are no flights, and our ship spent an extra hour in Ushuaia customs before leaving port because we had the Falklands on our itinerary (this may have been made slightly more difficult with an Argentine expedition team member and another Argentine passenger, I’m not sure). You can only fly to the Falklands in two ways:
- An RAF flight from Brize Norton (in the UK, via the Ascencion Islands), which is essentially a military charter flight, and as such doesn’t have a well-defined public schedule.
- A Saturday LAN Chile flight from Punta Arenas, which means you must spend a week on the islands.
Regardless of all this, we spent about a day and a half in the Falklands Islands, and saw some places that are rarely visited. We went to:
- Steeple Jason, one of the most difficult landings in the Falklands, as it has a rocky shoreline (there is no beach, just a lot of really big rocks). This was our first landing, but the water was like glass, so it wasn’t as difficult as it could have been. We saw the world’s largest albatross colony (about 100,000 pairs, plus chicks and adolescents, plus the requisite penguins.
- Saunders Island, a beautiful beach landing where we got to see Rockhopper Penguins, some amazing Commerson’s dolphins, and a great sunset. The weather for this landing was beautiful, too.
- Port Stanley, capital of the Falklands, which had been a repair stop for many whaling ships in the late 1800′s and early 1900′s. There are some pretty impressive wrecks there. Our morning in Stanley wasn’t as much fun as our other landings in the Falklands, because the weather was pretty foul – cold (just above freezing), high winds (30+ MPH), and a lot of rain early on definitely dampened our spirits. But, the museum was very interesting, and we got to stop at a few different, funny, photo points.
The Falklands were cool, and have a pretty strung-out and involved history – the Spanish, Portuguese, Argentines, and Brits all fought over them. We’ll talk more about it later on. For now, enjoy the photos! (click each one above to see the others from that location).
