The Voyage Begins....

Hey Everybody!

Thank you for being patient while waiting for me to get to work on the Antarctic posts. Finally....

We set sail for The Falkland Islands about 6:20pm on Sunday (11/4) and remained at sea for 1.5 days. The seas were fine and the weather was nice. It didn't take long for me to find quiet places to sit outside. As it turned out, there were far more pelagic birds than marine mammals to be seen on this leg of the journey.

Tuesday morning began with sunrise & land! Our first view of the Falklands...

While I don't want to spend a lot of time on country politics I will remind you that in Argentina, Ushuaia is considered the capital of The Falklands. Even those of us traveling together on the ship (including the guides) could not reach agreement abut who owns the land, although Argentina seemed to come out a bit more favored. In fact, if you ask Argentina our ship NEVER left Argentina...as they claim part of the Antarctic Peninsula too.

We made our first two zodiac landings on privately owned West Falkland islands: Carcass (pop. 2) and Saunders (owned by one family who drove down to the beach to greet us).

Carcass Island:

We & the Gentoo Penguins had beautiful weather on Carcass but by the time we got to Saunders Island the weather changed to heavy rain & wind. Most of us didn't care....just makes pictures harder to take. Nevertheless, we saw some Saunders Isl. natives: Rockhopper Penguin, a molting King Penguin (sleeping, not really headless), and an unusual group of creatures on a beach (penguins, sheep & people).

Next stop: East Falkland Island town of Stanley (pop. 2000). Stay tuned.....

 

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