Falkland Islands
After we left the Argentinian coast we had two days of sailing ahead of us before we reached the western parts of the Falkland Islands, or Islas Malvinas as they are called in Spanish.
In a historical point of view the Falkland Islands might be most known for the Falkland War that pestered the islands during the year of 1982. The islands were governed by Great Britain, but were invaded by Argentinian forces because Argentina wanted to have the islands under their territory. That claim is still present today and you can still find mine fields on the islands.
(Map from mapquest.com)
Our visit to the Falkland Islands started with a landing at Carcass Island in the western part of the islands. Here we saw gentoo penguins, magellanic penguins, caracaras and different kind of geese.
One couple is permanently living on this island and they had invited all of us to their home. They had baked 16 different kind of cookies for us! It was a very hard choice to pick the ones that we wanted to try, since it was not possible to try them all!
When we were back on Ocean Nova is was time for lunch. I'm guessing that not all of us were hungry at that point. :-) On our way to the next destination I went out on deck and was lucky to spot some dolphins playing very close to the ship. They were black and white in colour and later I heard that the species is called Commerson's dolphins. Beautiful and playful creatures!
After lunch it was time to go on shore again. This time we stopped at Saunders Island. This island showed out to be inhabited by gentoo penguins, rockhopper penguins, a few king penguins, blue-eyed shags and the very majestic black-browed albatrosses.
Our visit to the Falkland Islands ended with a day in the capital Port Stanley. The weather was nice and sunny and the temperature quite okey, but it was extremely windy!
In Port Stanley we got the opportunity to visit war memorials, a little museum, the post office and some souvenir shops before we continued our trip.
The shopping in Port Stanley went under the theme penguin! I bought penguin stamps, a penguin pin, penguin candy, three miniature penguins and a book about penguins written by the Swedish photographer Brutus Östling. Brutus was actually travelling together with us on this trip and he wrote a personal greeting to me in the book, so it became a very good memory from the trip.
The nature on the Falkland Islands is really breathtaking and to be able to get so close to the birds that are living here was a memorable experience. I was so happy already after our landings here. At that time I couldn't know that our next destination; South Georgia was going to be even more breathtaking.
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