The Falkland Islands and South Georgia

The first part of our cruise aboard the MS Island Sky… with a bunch of stoic Brits.

They say that below 50ᵒ latitude there is no law, below 60ᵒ, there is no god. 

And that is apparent even in The Falkland islands. They are as barren and miserable as all the pictures. Why they fought a war over it is beyond me, but fight they did, and the place is still littered with unexploded ordinance, active minefields and the wreckage of helicopters. Amusingly, the islands belong to Argentina on Argentinian maps, and to the British on the British maps. The main town, Stanley, is Landrover heaven, with all ages, stages and models. It has one petrol station, one post office and six pubs, but 8 politicians. The Brits clearly have legitimate claim. A true test was when a truck passed too close to our bus (narrow dirt roads are the norm there), and dramatically broke one of the windows. The passengers barely reacted, but sat quietly awaiting instruction. Definitely Brits.

Our vessel, The Island Sky, is rather glamorous and cabins come with walk-in wardrobes complete with a tie rack (wtf?). The sign urging passengers to save water begins with a quote from the Rhyme of the Ancient Mariner no less. Both passengers and crew are peppered with the wonderfully quirky upper-crust English, chirping and lisping like billio. Folks dress in the traditional outdoorsy uniform; rough-knit brown sweaters, quilted green jackets and knee high boots. Balding British heads in varying shades of purple and red are slicked with zinc sunscreen, giving an otherworldly sheen before they are shown to the Southern sun. In the hallways they greet one another with cheery "good mornings" and queue on demand. Everything is "splendid, wonderful, marvelous". On occasion, one sees a tie at dinner, so clearly some of the racks have been put to use.

The crew include a number of actor look a-likes. Mr. Sulu (Star Trek) plays the baby-grand piano every afternoon during tea (scones and assorted sandwiches of course) and the (very talented) female photographer is the spitting image of Austin Powers. The lovely Philippine who looks after our cabin is named Honey. We hit the trifecta of sexism, elitism and ageism whenever we address her by name.

We've had an uncannily smooth sail from Argentina - unheard of. These are notoriously rough seas (Drake Passage is considered the roughest crossing in the world), and we were all prepared for a few unsavoury events. The two meter swell was almost a let-down, although the crew assure us it will change. It took two full days at sea to reach South Georgia from the Falklands - one of which was completely shrouded in mist as we passed through the convergence zone.

The convergence is meeting place of warm and cold currents, and defines an ever moving biological and climatic barrier encircling Antarctica. Geographically, Antarctica is defined as the rather rigid line below 60ᵒ latitude - typical geographic types, no flexibility. The warmer waters support some species, the colder waters are quite different, so coming out of the daylong travel through mist was like passing into Avalon and another world. On this side, blue and white icebergs so large that they create their own climate sail; Orca, Humpback and Minke whales, multitudes of penguins, cormorants, and elephant and fur seals boil the otherwise oily water; elegant Antarctic terns, giant petrels and the 3.5 metre wingspan of albatross employ the water's 'ground effect' with enviable grace. It is breathtaking.

You will be enthralled to know that South Georgia is the site of the world's largest ever rat eradication. With glacial retreat, the available land for the rats to inhabit is only increasing, so it was a now or never situation. It has been stunningly successful and to retain it, the residents have become zealous about bio-security. We've used tweezers to pluck seeds from the velcro on our jackets, scrubbed our boots in disinfectant and gone over each other like monkeys grooming. We are not to take bags on shore, lie on shore, or put our coats down on shore!  Once we passed inspection - a single local officer (or 1/24 of the population), came on board and repeated the entire monkey grooming process - we were allowed to land.

To say South Georgia is spectacular is a king-sized understatement. The enormous mass of living creatures here is hard to put into words. We have been prevented from landing a couple of times, as fur seals are so thick on the ground it is not safe to make your way through. When they do charge we've had to employ the Donald Trump School of Survival technique: stand your ground no matter how precipitous, and puff yourself up to look as big and as intimidating as possible. Huge colonies of penguins stretch as far as the eye can see, and the elephant seals invade our landing sites with huge doey eyes and an extraordinary ability to fart loudly and often. Tony feels right at home.

We have visited the burial site of Earnest Shackleton and one of the old whaling stations. During peak carnage, several of these industrial-sized purveyors of destruction operated on the island. The one we visited was single-handedly responsible for removing over 75,000 assorted whales from the waters in about 40 years. Why pick and choose when you can just take the lot? Happily, whale numbers are recovering and replenishing the iron limited productivity of this ocean by pooing out iron rich waste in ever increasing quantities. S & T
xxx