Antarctica 2023
FALKLAND ISLANDS (ISLA MALVINAS)
Feb 18
GPS Position: 51° 18,30’ S, 060° 33,4’ W
Wind: NW-2 • Sea State: Slight • Weather: Overcast
Air temp: 6°C • Sea temp: 8°C
We woke up in the West Falklands, it's slightly overcast and foggy. As mentioned the Falkland Islands are made up of 750 different Islands, and today we would visit two of them. The West Falklands are often referred to as 'The Camp' as this is a term for the farmland areas of the Falkland Islands. Most of these Islands are privately owned by farming families going back generations.
Carcass Island
Our first stop of the morning is Carcass Island, the 10 kilometer long Island has been a sheep farm for over a century. We are given the option of a long walk or you could zodiac directly to a settlement for a visit and some baked goods. We chose the walk.
As we walk along, we are seeing groups of Magallenic penguins and their little burrows.
While we wander, these little brown Tussock birds are hopping around (and on) our feet, not scared at all.
The closer we get to the beach, the more penguins we see, and now it's a mix of Magellanic, Gentoo and Upland Geese.
Gentoo Penguin
Ruddy
Headed Goose Striated
Caracara
The Caracaras (hawks) don't seem to be afraid of us either, just curious.
From the hill you can see both sides of the Island.
The Island trail... more like sheep trail
Carcass Island is doing it's part to keep the Land Rover per capita numbers up.
It was light rain, off and on, until we got to the settlement where they had an amazing assortment of cakes and baking for us. Turns out everyone gets the pastries, and a cup of tea or coffee.
We didn't know to bring some British Pounds on our trip, or we would have come home with one of these penguins.
After enjoying the fabulous spread of cakes and pastries and a cup of tea, we wandered the rocky beach for a while looking at caracaras, geese and ducks before heading back to the ship.
As we all put on our lifejackets one more time and wait on the pier to board our zodiacs, Adam and Marcel are telling each person not to step on the wooden edge of the pier as it's quite slippery. It seems like every 4th or 5th person steps on the wood, so they keep repeating it. "don’t step on the wood, DON'T step on the wood!" Like usual we're one of the last to board with Jim and Frances, so we all start chanting as we get closer "don't step on the wood, don't step on the wood, don't step on the wood", even the guides are laughing as we board our zodiac.
After lunch on the boat (even though most of us were full of cakes), we made our way to the next and last excursion of our journey.
Saunders Island
At the sandy beach, the owners of the island and their dog welcome us. Saunders Island is the fourth largest of the Falkland Islands, and is run as a sheep farm. It was our final landing, and it was amazing! Gentoos, Kings, Magellanics, Rock Hoppers, Skags and black brow albatrosses. So many babies it was ridiculous.
Life can be tough as a young penguin
On the far side of the Island from where we land, is another amazing white sand beach.
The setting of rocky cliffs and a long white sandy beach was so beautiful, we could see Commerson’s dolphins from the shore as we started the climb up to an Albatross, Imperial Shag and Southern Rockhopper penguin rookery.
Imperial Shag (Cormorant) Rookery
The Black Brow Albatross Rookery is astonishing, at first you see a few little clusters along the cliffs, then you walk to the next area and there is hundreds of them. Pretty exciting for us as we only saw one Albatross baby in the Galapagos Islands.
Scattered amongst the Shag and Albatross babies are the cute, but angry looking, Southern Rockhopper penguins, our seventh species of penguins on this trip. As you watch them you quickly learn why they are called rockhoppers.
It's a pretty steep trail up to the rookeries along a rather steep cliff-face, and we are a little concerned that some of our less stable passengers may have some real difficulties along here. I was happy to see Colonel Sanders sitting down watching the first group of Albatross, and then I helped a couple ladies complaining about their replaced hips get across a small creek. Happily everyone made it back to the beach, and started their way across the Island to the zodiacs.
It's back past the rare sheep penguin grazing areas, and down to the beach.
Falkland Steamer Ducks
At the far end of the beach is another good viewing area for Imperial Shags and Rockhopper penguins.
While we are watching the rockhoppers hop, an elephant seal comes to check us out.
As we are taking our last few photos the guides start directing everyone to get going back to the zodiacs.
Now they were rushing us back to the boats as the wind was starting to pick up.
We had no more time to admire penguins hiding eggs under their bellies, and definitely no time to stop and buy souvenirs from the portable souvenir stand, we had to get our life vests on and get in the zodiacs.
When we tried to get on the zodiacs, we realized why they were rushing us. The surf was picking up, there was a good swell at the beach, and good waves on the ride back. Waves were crashing over the front of the zodiac and everyone was getting quite wet. On one of the other zodiacs enough water splashed over that it activated some life vests, and it made for a very exciting and soggy ride back to the ship... some people were not happy, but to Norine and I it was a great way to end the excursions!
After todays excursions, we have seen 7 different species of penguins;
(In order) Gentoo, Chinstrap, Adelie, Macaroni, King, Magellanic, and lastly the Southern
Rockhoppers.
Tonight we had dinner with Ranajoy and John from D.C., we brought our complimentary champagne that has been sitting in our fridge since we boarded the ship. We had a lot of discussions about future vacation plans.
After dinner we watched a movie about Sasha’s life in the high north Arctic of the ghost town Pyramiden, it was interesting but also a little sad when Sasha discusses his solitary lifestyle. A funny moment was them talking about another guy that works there doing the night shift. No-one has seen him, but a plate of food is left for him and it's gone in the morning.
After the movie we chatted with Frances for the rest of the night. John and Ranajoy came over and we were talking about Colonel Sanders and Drunky being roommates. When Drunky walks in and tells us all kinds of odd stories of the upcoming wake up call, his bucket lists and his death wishes. He thought Frances was our daughter and called her 'daughter'. When he wanders away for a smoke break, we are all just looking at each other and then start laughing. Busting a gut we all head off to bed.
The Falkland Islands provided a very nice way to wrap up our excursions, a mix of history, an old town, farmlands, and some new wildlife we had never seen before. I haven't even mentioned the opportunity to be amongst hundreds of babies in the rookeries.
As we sleep, the Hondius is sailing towards Ushuaia and the very last leg of our journey.
Feb 19
GPS Position: 53°55,7’ S, 063°59,2.’W
Wind: S-5 • Sea State: Smooth • Weather: Overcast
Air temp: 4°C • Sea temp: 10°C
Back at Sea, heading towards Ushuaia
We woke up twice today, once at 7:45 when Drunky uses his ‘wake up call’ that he won in the auction and has a bunch of people give a good morning message in their own languages. I think everyone on the ship was truly surprised just how good it was. The next wake up call was an hour and a half later when we were told it was time to return our muck boots.
It’s a slightly overcast day with relatively calm seas. It was raining in the morning, but blue skies by the afternoon.
Tiphanie did a lecture on the weird fish of the Falkland Islands and South Georgia, they were weird.
The afternoon was all about settling of accounts and pre-ordering drinks for the remainder of the evening. Our last lecture of the expedition was Part 2 of the Mini-lectures on the climate with Felicity, Fiona, Ursula and Pippa, it was focused on pollution and plastics.
By the late afternoon we were already in the Beagle Channel that leads to Ushuaia. We
all gather for one last hurrah as Captain Toni gives his farewell toast and thank you
speech at the Captain’s Cocktail. His biggest observation was that there was hardly
anybody in the lounge during the first few days of rough seas, but the last few days of
rough seas the lounge was packed.
Congratulations to us for getting our Sea Legs.
We had our last dinner with John and Ranajoy again, I don't remember what the dinner was,
but I sure do remember the dessert.
18 days at sea, and 36 different desserts were consumed, one at lunch and one
at dinner. Dessert was slightly delayed so all the crew members and staff could parade out
for us, a huge round of applause for our Bridge crew, the ships mechanics and zodiac
loaders, our expedition guides and zodiac pilots, the kitchen staff and servers, the
chefs, the bartenders and front desk staff, the cleaning staff and room stewards, and one
final round of applause for the ship doctor.
Chocolate covered Donut and Strawberry Shake
A group of us tried to make the trip last as long as we could and hung out in the lounge well past midnight. Sasha asked if anybody wanted to sell their sunglasses, as his blew off during the last zodiac trip back to the ship. I always bring a spare pair of sunglasses because I'm either going to lose a pair in the water or sit on them, so I gave him a pair of mine before we all crashed for the last night.
Feb 20
GPS Position: At Port Ushuaia
Wind: N-1 • Sea State: At Port • Weather: Sunny
Air temp: 7°C • Sea temp: 11°C
We arrived back in Ushuaia around 6am, for those that weren't following along with my Garmin Sattelite feed as we sailed, this is what it looked like at the end. There is fresh snow on the mountains, and it's slightly overcast with no wind.
Total distance sailed on our voyage: 3503.5 Nautical Miles
Furthest point south: Feb 5, 2023 Danco Island 64°43,8'S / 062°35,8'W
One last wake-up all from Pippa. Our bags are packed when we head down for breakfast one last time and we are getting ready to disembark our dear Hondius that has taken us to one of the most beautiful places on earth. The last 19 days have taken us on a remarkable journey over the notorious Drake Passage, the frozen Antarctic Peninsula, the incredible penguin and seal covered South Georgia and ultimately the historic Falkland Islands. It has given us a glimpse of life in these remote and sometimes inhospitable places. We have encountered amazing wildlife, made new friends, learned and experienced so much together. We will all take away different memories of our cruise, but those memories will stay with us for the rest of our lives. This was our expedition.
We disembarked the Hondius and said our goodbyes to our new friends and the crew...