Antarctic Cruise: Falkland Islands (2.28.24)

The Falkland Islands are bleak and remote.  We were very lucky that the weather was good enough for our ship to anchor there on February 28, 2024.  Many times the waves are too choppy for cruise ships to either dock or tender their passengers to shore.

Dave and I didn't see many penguins on the Antarctic peninsula, but we saw hordes of them at Bluff Cove Lagoon on the Falkland Islands, near Stanley, the capital.  We had to walk through disinfectant to keep foreign bacteria, including bird flu, from the penguins.  There are many types of penguins.  The types we saw on the Falkland Islands were adeli and gentoo penguins.  The younger penguins were molting, with brown fur sloughing off to show their sleek, black-and-white coats.

Our tour van jounced along the rough roads to Bluff Cove, through bleak countryside.

The bus driver told us about immigrating from England when she was a teenager.  "At first I felt like there was nothing here and I wanted to go back to England," she said.  "And then my dad bought me a horse."  The driver, fiftyish, has lived the rest of her life on the islands, raising a family and keeping her English culture.  The Falkland Islands are a colony of Great Britain.

After we had our fill of penguin-watching, we warmed up at the nearby Sea Cabbage Cafe with hot chocolate, homemade shortbread, and other British pastries.

As remote as the Sea Cabbage Cafe was, it still had a poster on the wall honoring President Zelensky of Ukraine for his courage in the ongoing Russian/Ukrainian War.

Stanley had a mix of quaint English gardens and churches, and flat-topped, utilitarian warehouses.

This picturesque British church had an arch of whalebones in front of it!

The grocery store sold British staples like "mushy peas" and "salad cream."

We walked along the boardwalk and then crawled into the tender to take us back to our ship.