First
landing, first albatrosses and first penguins! And, of course, first encounter
with the variable Malvinas/Falkland Islands unpredictable weather. The landing
at New Island started with pretty miserable conditions, improving while we were
ashore to not so bad, quite good and extraordinary. We enjoyed the perfect light for photographing birds, which is something
that our passengers took advantage of, filling their memory cards to the limit
of their capacity.
Black-browed
albatrosses with chicks were the stars of the day, followed in close pursuit by
the always devilishly looking rockhopper penguins and the elegant blue eye
cormorants. The perfect setting of the rookery, like a natural Greek theatre
hanging over a cliff facing the open ocean, did the rest.
And for
those souls for whom nature is not enough, the little touch of history in the
tiny museum of the settlement gave them the human dimension to this nowadays
almost uninhabited place. Rusty harpoons, flensing gear and old cauldrons reminded
everyone that this astonishingly beautiful island once was the first and only
land whaling station of the whole archipelago.
Remote
Carcass Island, with its most hospitable owners Lorraine and Rob, was waiting
for us in the afternoon. A paradise for serious and occasional birdwatchers,
the beach has been a hotspot for a great variety of endemic and non endemic
birds of the Malvinas/Falklands.
Delicious
cookies from four corners of the British world welcomed all of us that decided
to pay a visit to the farm and meet Lorraine and Rob at their warmly decorated home.
Tea time found most of the passengers savouring their coffee and tea at the house,
but few decided to burn out some cookies and made it to the top of the hill
located just behind the house, a short but steep and strenuous walk facing
strong winds that almost took some of our thinner passengers to the neighbouring
island!
A quite wet
and bumpy Polarcirckle boat ride back to the ship was the final adventure to
deserve a well earned buffet dinner after the first activites ashore. We ended the day sailing along the
uninhabited northern cost of the islands heading towards Port Stanley, the “big
city” of the Malvinas/Falkland Islands, where new adventures and experiences
are waiting for us tomorrow.
