Stanley, Falkland Islands
We were one of the first groups off the ship because we signed up to go to Gypsy Cove on Stanley. It’s about 4 miles from where we got off the zodiac. We rode a bus there and then trekked around the cove. On the beach was a group of magellanic penguins. We weren’t allowed to go down to the beach because there is a possibility that land mines left from the Falkland War of 1982 might wash ashore! So we photographed them from afar. Gypsy Cove is on the northwest corner of Yorke Bay and it is the best place for viewing shore birds and magellanic penguins on this island.
After our visit here we rode a bus back into town and we explored some of the city sites and ate lunch at a little cafe. We purchased an internet card for $8.00 for 60 minutes but we found the internet service really wasn’t any better here than on the ship. We were disappointed and that’s when we gave up trying to post to the blog.
We made it back to the ship before it started raining really hard and the storm began in earnest. Our ship left Stanley to go to a protective bay to let the worst of the storm get by us. On our way we had a mandatory biosecurity screening. All of our gear that would be going on to shore in South Georgia needed to be inspected by the expedition team. Each of them had a vacuum cleaner to clean anything that might contaminate the ecosystem in South Georgia. It was very interesting to go through this process. After our gear was checked we also had to sign that our gear meets South Georgia’s strict environmental standards. More places to to enforce such restrictions!
Berkeley Sound was where we anchored to wait out the worst of the storm!
It was raining very hard and the wind was really strong. We were told to secure all items in our cabin and when moving around our cabin or the ship, we were to always have one hand on the ship. There was quite a lot of swaying. It was hard to not roll out of bed!
