Port Stanley, Falklands
A colorful array of rooftops greeted us as we entered Stanley, capital of the Falkland Islands. This picturesque setting is home to approximately 2000 residents. The other 500 or so live in small settlements throughout the islands. If you’re not in Stanley, then you’re in “camp.” When students outgrow their small settlements, they receive room and board and a high school education here in the capital. When they graduate, stipends allow them to attend university in England. The Falklands are British in every way. A look into the local store confirms what the accents have already told you, that tea and McVities digestives are an integral part of life here in the Falklands. There’s always time for a “cuppa.”
Stanley has served as a safe and protected harbor for a long time, especially for ships limping in after a treacherous Cape Horn crossing. A few of the derelicts can still be seen in the harbor. Everything in Stanley is within close walking distance to everything else. A strollers’ paradise. In one block (along the shoreline) you can visit nice shops, a restaurant or two (serving fish and chips of course), the cathedral with its famous arch (made from the jaw bones of a blue whale), the philatelic bureau, a monument to the fallen solders in the 1982 “conflict,” and an impressive natural and human history museum (all without breaking a sweat!). Some of us took the guided walk, a few went power shopping, and yet another group took advantage of a stretch-your-legs hike up Tumbledown Mountain, complete with flowering orchids. Spring is definitely in the air.
At mid-day we set sail for South Georgia, a two-day transit. In the afternoon our university-at-sea series continued with a short digital workshop by Jack Swenson. During afternoon teas some sei whales appeared on the horizon and for a while we paralleled them, admiring their distant spouts against a relatively calm sea. Kim Heacox then offered us “Kingdom of the Strictest Meridian” a photographic welcome to South Georgia and Antarctica, the title from a Pablo Neruda poem about the Antarctic. Spirits were high as we headed east-southeast, filled with eagerness of the adventure yet to come.
A colorful array of rooftops greeted us as we entered Stanley, capital of the Falkland Islands. This picturesque setting is home to approximately 2000 residents. The other 500 or so live in small settlements throughout the islands. If you’re not in Stanley, then you’re in “camp.” When students outgrow their small settlements, they receive room and board and a high school education here in the capital. When they graduate, stipends allow them to attend university in England. The Falklands are British in every way. A look into the local store confirms what the accents have already told you, that tea and McVities digestives are an integral part of life here in the Falklands. There’s always time for a “cuppa.”
Stanley has served as a safe and protected harbor for a long time, especially for ships limping in after a treacherous Cape Horn crossing. A few of the derelicts can still be seen in the harbor. Everything in Stanley is within close walking distance to everything else. A strollers’ paradise. In one block (along the shoreline) you can visit nice shops, a restaurant or two (serving fish and chips of course), the cathedral with its famous arch (made from the jaw bones of a blue whale), the philatelic bureau, a monument to the fallen solders in the 1982 “conflict,” and an impressive natural and human history museum (all without breaking a sweat!). Some of us took the guided walk, a few went power shopping, and yet another group took advantage of a stretch-your-legs hike up Tumbledown Mountain, complete with flowering orchids. Spring is definitely in the air.
At mid-day we set sail for South Georgia, a two-day transit. In the afternoon our university-at-sea series continued with a short digital workshop by Jack Swenson. During afternoon teas some sei whales appeared on the horizon and for a while we paralleled them, admiring their distant spouts against a relatively calm sea. Kim Heacox then offered us “Kingdom of the Strictest Meridian” a photographic welcome to South Georgia and Antarctica, the title from a Pablo Neruda poem about the Antarctic. Spirits were high as we headed east-southeast, filled with eagerness of the adventure yet to come.
