STANLEY, FALKLAND ISLANDS
Today, we dropped anchor in Blanco Bay, a short tender boats ride from Stanley, in the Falkland Islands. After all the anxiety about whether or not we would actually be able to get ashore, what with the location’s reputation for adverse weather conditions, it was a great relief to find ourselves surrounded by calm water, bright sunshine and clear blue skies. Not only that; the islands around us looked quite beautiful in their wild, understated resplendence. Other than a smattering of higher ground and a few hazy peaks on the horizon, everywhere we looked the land was quite flat, with not a single tree in sight.
We were behind our schedule by roughly two hours, arriving at gone 11am instead of the scheduled 9am. Although we were told that lettered tender tickets would not be issued from the Future Cruise desk until 11am, a queue had been forming there from before 9am; by the time I joined it, it snaked the whole width of the ship, past Reception, and deep into the Captain’s Club. Our tickets were ‘J’… since, at that point, the tender operation hadn’t yet even started, it would be some time yet until we would be able to get ashore.
We did, finally, though. We decided to grab ourselves a roll from the Bistro for lunch before ‘J’ was called, and we were stepping onto the jetty at about 1pm, were we were greeted by Mark Spicer, a resident of Stanley who had contacted me some weeks ago, just before coming away, and had kindly offered to give Tracey and myself a private tour around the island, for which we were immensely grateful.
Stanley (often also referred to as ‘Port Stanley’) is classed as a city, because it has a cathedral. As we sailed into the little harbour, however, it looked more like a very colourful, small town similar to those we’ve seen in Norway and Greenland. All the buildings we saw were single storey, mostly of wooden construction, and many with corrugated metal rooves. It could just as easily have been a very large allotment.
After brief introductions, Mark took us in his four-wheel drive, via Yorke Bay, to Gypsy Cove. He was the perfect host, giving us lots of interesting information about the island, and answering our barrage of questions about island life.
I hadn’t really known what to expect. One thing for certain is that no-one quite expected the weather. We’d been debating about whether or not we should bring our thermals with us, along with thick winter coats and hats. I’d changed back into my long trousers from the quarter-lengths I’ve been sporting since Madeira, but wished I’d kept my three-quarters on, it was so nice out.
I think I’d expected it to be bleak and cold. The landscape is certainly wild, but Mark told us that this is now their Summer, and that days like this, contrary to popular belief back in the UK, are actually quite common. The main thing on my agenda, that I was hoping to see, was penguins.
At Gypsy Cove, we saw our first penguins (Magellanic and Gentoo) – loads of them!
We walked around Mary Hill, marvelling at the rocks along the shoreline, off-roaded to some fantastic sand dunes (where there were yet more penguins) and drove past the small airport to Cape Pembroke with its old iron lighthouse and crashing waves, before heading back towards Stanley via Surf Bay.
As well as penquins, we saw lots of other birds; Tracey was in her element and could name many of them; when it came to those that she couldn’t identify, our guide was able fill in the blanks. At Cape Pembroke there was a huge hawk of some sort, sat quite still on a post.
We paused at the metal bridge over the inlet of water known as Canache, to look at an old boat graveyard, drove past a tall post which Mark described as their ‘Totem Pole’, featuring signs pointing to all corners of the world, all of which has been added by the islands many visitors, and made a final stop at the ‘Welcome to Stanley’ road sign, which proudly announces, much to our surprise, that it is twinned with Whitby in North Yorkshire (it even features a sheep on its crest), before being dropped off back in Stanley.
It had been a fantastic, memorable afternoon, thanks to Mark, who is a top bloke, as well as being an excellent host and guide.
With just 30 minutes left before the last tender, we took a quick stroll to look at the war momument, situated next to Thatcher Drive, where Maggie has a small commemorative stature of her own.
Naturally, there are many momuments and existing relics relating to the terrible events of 1982, when Argentina thought they could just slip in and take what they believed belonged to them, but doesn’t. The beach at Yorke Bay is where the Argentinians came ashore, and planted mines, believing that’s where the British would follow them, but didn’t. The whole area is still fenced-off and out-of-bouds as the clean-up operation is still a work-in-progress. As well as relics from that war, we also saw huge guns puched on the tops of hills dating back to earlier conflicts, and the names of ships assigned to the task of helping protect the islands are spelled out in large letters, made up from rocks, on the opposite side of the bay, overlooking Stanley.
It’s a shame that the good vibes of the day, collectively felt, I’m pretty sure, by everyone who went ashore on such a glorious day, should be soured slightly by the moronic actions of a single person in the second-to-last tender back to the ship…
The tender boat was almost full as the last of us climbed on board, taking up the final few remaining seats. Space was becoming quite tight, so a man who seemed resigned to having to squeeze onto the end of one of the central pews, asked another man who was already sat there with his wife (he was South African), if he could move along a little (or even move to seats on the opposite side beyond, where there appeared to be more space). The man’s reply was quite blunt ‘No thank you, I’m perfectly happy where I am’. Undeterred, the English passenger asked him again, if he would mind moving to allow others to be a little more comfortable. Up until this point, his request seemed quite reasonable, which made what followed seemed all the more shocking and inappropriate. The South African turned on the other man with words I’m not going to repeat here. I suspect he’d probably had a drink on the island’s pub, since his face seemed quite flushed, although I’m couldn’t be certain. The verbal attack escalated quite quickly, with the South African insulting the English man in quite disgusting terms, before proceeding to accuse him (because the English man had reached across, behind his wife’s back to tap him on the shoulder) of having assaulted both him and his wife.
‘You assaulted me, and you assaulted my wife’, he kept repeating loudly, like a puffed up, petulant, overgrown teenager.
All of this happened right in front of a tender boat full of passengers who not only witnessed the whole thing, but where clearly quite appalled at his behaviour, and as the verbal bullying and shouting escalated, it felt like a fight might break out at any moment. The South African kept repeating his accusation, declaring that he would be reporting the Englishman to the captain as soon as he was back on board, and he would be thrown off the ship. Other passengers waded into the English man’s defence, and called for the horrible man’s language to please be moderated in front of the ladies present, and for all to calm down.
Frankly, we could all have done without the aggro. It seemed to flare up quite quickly and was totally unnecessary. Unfortunately, cruising seems to bring out the best and worst in people; it’s a shame that some people appear to lack even the most basic of social skills and self control. Whether there was drink involved or not, the actions of the South African man were totally out of order and unprovoked, and he should be thoroughly ashamed of himself.
In the evening, after dinner, we went outside on deck to watch the sunset as we left the islands. The light was awesome and the evening quite beautiful.
We hadn’t gone far, however, when the ship started to turn around and crew came out to clear the back deck, with the words ‘Medical Emergency’ being bandied arounnd. Tables were quickly cleared out of the way and everyone was promptly herded back inside, in preparation for the arrival of a helicopter. As it happened, it was decided that a helicopter easn’t necessary, and a speedboat came out to meet the ship instead, presumeably to whisk the poor passenger, whose emergency it was, off to a hospital somewhere.
Despite the aggro in the tender and the Medical Emergency, The Falkland Islands remain the unexpected highlight of the trip so far. It certainly made a good impression on Tracey and myself.
