December 15, 2022, Thursday: Port Stanley, Falkland Islands
The Oosterdam sailed northeast from Cape Horn to the Falkland Islands, anchoring in a bay outside the port of Stanley, the world’s southernmost capital. Today we’ve joined an excursion to a King Penguin rookery at Volunteer Point. There is no tour guide but a rugged 4×4 drive over bumpy terrain to meet the “Kings”.
The Falkland Islands were claimed by the English in 1765 but were tossed back and forth amongst other countries before England regained control. It was an important base for ships hunting seals and whales back in the 17th through the early 20th centuries but today it is chiefly tourism and fishing making up the economy. There was a 6-month war in 1982 when an Argentine dictator decided to invade the Falkland Islands and claim them for Argentina. Margaret Thatcher, the Prime Minister of the UK at the time, would have none of it and sent in troops. The UK won and the Falkland Islands remain a British territory.
The tender dropped us off at the pier where we were divided into groups of 4 and introduced to our 4×4 drivers. Leroy was a seasoned off-road driver, enjoying motocross riding with his 7-year old son. He warned us that it would take an hour to reach Johnson Ranch where we would have a break before driving another hour to the rookery. Our convoy left the pier, traveled on a paved road before turning on to a gravel road for the remainder of the first leg of our adventure. It only got more challenging!
After our “necessary” stop at the remote Johnson Ranch, it was back into the 4×4 and very much “off road”. As the crow flies, the King Penguin rookery was about 8 miles away. Leroy told us there were helicopter flights available for a few people but they would “miss the adventure”. The convoy of eight 4x4s consisting of Land Rovers, Jeeps, Fords and Mitsubishis made a mucky trail through cow pastures, peat bogs, small ravines, sucking mud and challenging inclines with passengers hanging on for dear life! What had we gotten ourselves into?!
The landscape revealed a desolate beauty under blue skies with a few dark clouds in the distance. Despite one of the 4x4s needing to be pulled out of the mud, we all made it to the rookery in just over an hour. It felt good to haul ourselves out of the Land Rover.
We were finally here and so were the penguins! Before entering the grounds, we had to dip the bottoms of our shoes into a solution that would disinfect any potentially harmful bacteria or virus that could infect the penguins. Our only admonition regarding our proximity to the penguins was that we needed to use the rope as a boundary as well as staying outside any rock circle that surrounded nesting penguins. Apparently the penguins did not get the memo as they were everywhere! We spent the next 2 hours stalking penguins!
We were on our own, heading to the beach area to see the Gentoo Penguins waddling on the white sands and then heading into the water to feed. We had passed a tuxedo of penguins walking up from the beach on the way to their rookery. On the roped-off side of the beach were the large King Penguins, standing tall at 3 feet and looking quite dignified as they walked up from the shore.
There are three penguin species at Volunteer Point: the Gentoo Penguins, the Magellanic Penguins and the King Penguins. The Gentoo and Magellanic are about the same size.
The Magellanic Penguins dig burrows where they build nests and raise their young.
We noticed quite a few burrows as we walked from the beach to the vast expanse of green grass where we observed an enormous group of noisy King Penguins on one side and the somewhat quieter Gentoo Penguins on the other side, keeping their distance respectfully. That said, Kings and Gentoos roamed around in pairs or sometimes in groups when coming from the beach. The Magellanics seem to keep to themselves, only straying from their burrows to feed in the ocean.
Mary Margaret cannot stop taking photos and videos! It was such a stunning location: expansive white sand, gorgeous turquoise ocean and black and white waddlers. Although we tried to stay away from the penguins they walked by us as if we weren’t of any importance.
The evening before reaching the Falklands, we decided to watch a movie in our stateroom before dinner: “Penguins” produced by Disney in 2019. It was delightful and now that these magnificent creatures were all around us in living color, we saw many of the mannerisms exhibited in the film/documentary, including stealing rocks from other’s nests in the Gentoo rookery, wooly King youngsters chasing their parent for food, and adult males yelling and chasing each other from a nest. Fun!
The weather was turning from a brilliant sunny day to dark and rainy. We ate our lunch, took another swirl around the grounds then it was back in the Land Rover and a return to the Johnson Ranch over the same terrain! Maybe we shouldn’t have had lunch?
After an hour of more jostling (an understatement), it was back to the gravel road after a brief stop at the ranch. Leroy made a couple of stops along the last hour of the drive so we could photograph a stone run, the rusty remains of an Argentinian helicopter shot down in 1982 and Boot Hill, where people who’ve decided to leave the Falklands forever leave a boot, or so the legend states.
A stone run is a unique geological feature on this island and can be seen everywhere. They appear to be rivers of boulders and involve ancient glacial activity, annual action of frost heaves and the rains that clean off the boulders. Mary Margaret recalled that her grandfather’s farm had an annual crop of stones that had to be cleared from the field before planting. This, however, is on a much larger scale!
Leroy dropped us off near the pier and in close proximity to shopping. We could barely extract ourselves from the back of the Land Rover. It’s a good thing the Oosterdam has a hot tub and a spa!
As we relaxed in the Crow’s Nest while the Oosterdam lifted her anchor to sail away, the captain came on the speaker to inform us there are penguins on the starboard side of the ship and that we were very fortunate with today’s weather. “Stanley is one of the most canceled cruise ports we have as the weather is quite unpredictable and rough making an anchorage unsafe”. It’s a good thing we didn’t know about it beforehand or it would have been something else to worry about!
What an incredible experience we had today, despite the wild 4×4 ride or maybe because of it. How else could the penguin rookery be kept so pristine unless it was located at the edge of civilization? We feel so fortunate to have our health and sense of adventure.