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Falkland Islands 3 – New Island

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Sunday 11 March 2024 – Overnight from Carcass to New Island was “not too bad”, a phrase which has been a running joke throughout this whole trip.  When Pippa and the skipper first discussed our overall route and a possible transit through the Drake Passage, the major decision to reverse the direction of our entire outing and make it anticlockwise was done on the basis that the captain’s view was that the wind forecast was “not too bad” – apparently the most sanguine description he ever gives of weather possibilities.  With the exception of maybe two nights, our transits from place to place have been “not too bad”, i.e. absolutely bloody miraculous.  It has been astonishing how good our weather has been, to the point where I was considering (jokingly) the possibility of submitting a complaint about the trip because it wasn’t the “authentic Antarctic experience”.

Anyway, not too bad.

We were able, courtesy of some more skillful navigation from the captain, to get quite near New Island. You can see from the state of the sea that it was pretty breezy.

Closer examination shows it to be a settlement that’s a little more substantial than the one we’d recently visited at Carcass.

Indeed, it has its own shipwreck

and a small but beautifully formed museum

dedicated to supporting the New Island Conservation Trust. This was originally set up by the two co-owners of the island to ensure that it never got exploited and was always a conservation area for wildlife.

Outside, the museum has a gentoo penguin statue

and inside

there’s a lot of information about the trust, many relevant artifacts from the surrounding area

as well as an opportunity to indulge in some retail therapy.

Having perused the place, we started the relatively short walk towards another black-browed albatross colony. On the way, we passed kelp geese,

more of the ubiquitous upland geese

and more rockhoppers using cormorants for added security against marauding skuas,

but the albatrosses were the main objective of the excursion.

An albatross is a big bird and, like the cormorant, one that a skua won’t fuck about with, hence the rockhoppers get the added protection.  The location shown above is also a good demonstration of why rockhoppers get their name, since they’ve clearly hopped up all those rocks to get to a place of relative security.

There were cormorants among the other birds, too;

these were imperial cormorants, distinguished by white on the front of their necks and those yellow-orange eye decorations.

It was windy. Again.  And, as well as some dramatic cliff scenery,

there was tucking fussock grass. Again.

It really was somewhere between “trying” and “dangerous” to find places to watch the penguins and albatrosses – but ultimately rewarding.

The rockhoppers are very engaging creatures

and the wind made their hairstyle very distinctive

and clearly left them at times severely unimpressed.

The albatrosses were feeding their chicks, each residing on the nest that they won’t leave until they can fly.  They’re very demanding.

and it was interesting to watch the way their demands affected the parents.

After a while it was time to head back, this time thankfully with the wind behind us, to the boat, but the final image that stayed with me was this extremely punk rockhopper.

For Jane and me, this was our last landing on the Falklands.  Pippa organised another one, more to the north of New Island, but, frankly, both of us were pretty tuckered out by this stage, and the northern landing didn’t hold the prospect of seeing anything dramatically different from what we’d already seen.  So we awarded ourselves our second Afternoon Off. Which was delightful, I have to say.

And now we had to leave. After our time in the Falklands, all that remained was a Sea Day whilst we headed back to Ushuaia and the end of three weeks exploring Antarctica and the Southern Ocean Islands. We simply hoped that the weather would continue to be “not too bad”.  One of the other captains in the Oceanwide Adventures fleet reportedly has another weather saying: “One day, you’ll pay”. We had to hope that  maybe it wouldn’t be down to us to pick up this particular bill.

 

Falkland Islands 2 – Carcass

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Sunday 10  March 2024 (pm) – The stabilisers on Hondius did a good job of countering the waves as the ship was carefully navigated around to Carcass Island, also off West Falkland; the wind was still strong, but the landing area looked calm enough.

We landed near a settlement and – praise be! – there was a jetty.

Mind you, because of the state of the tide and the slime at the foot of the jetty, we had to disembark part way up, which was a bit of a step up.

There were, broadly speaking, two options for the afternoon: stay near the landing area and drop into the settlement for tea and cakes; or go for a longish walk before dropping into the settlement for tea and cakes.  I suppose there might have been an option which didn’t include tea and cakes, but no-one seemed interested in that one.

On the path to the settlement, a tussac bird checked us out.

(I assume that the “tussac” in the name of this bird means the same as the more familiar “tussock”.  On several occasions we have had to deal with tussock grass, which, believe me, is not just grass growing in tussocks, oh dear me no. In the Falklands and South Georgia it is a specific plant, Poa Flabbelata, as any fule kno, whose growth builds an ever-increasing pedestal which supports its leaves and can grow up to the height of a man.  This provides shelter for animals and a major trip hazard for humans. For example, one passenger on Hondius had been medevacked on his first attempt to do this trip because the tussock grass concealed a hole which caused his ankle to break in spectacular fashion.)

So, off we went on the walk along a track normally used by local 4x4s.

The info we’d been given asserted that this walk was a chance to see local wildlife, and I suppose it was, provided what you wanted to see was upland geese. There were loads of them,

but for most of the walk out, very little else.  Jane spotted a dark-faced ground tyrant and I managed to catch it before it buggered off,

but apart from that and a few kelp geese spotted in the distance

there was nothing on offer on a long and, frankly, dull walk.

After a couple of wildlifeless kilometres, we decided to turn back, and discovered that what was dull became tedious in the extreme, as we had to stumble back against the infamous Falkland Island wind.  It really was hard work, with the only photographic reward being the spotting by Jane of a couple of magellanic penguins standing guard on their burrows.

I guess I’m being a bit harsh in describing the walk as dull – under other circumstances a bracing walk through the countryside in streaming sunshine would be a pleasure. But I felt that an expedition-style outing should have a bit more pith and moment – or just make it a brief stop for tea, cakes and a look at the wildlife around the landing area.

Having struggled back against the wind, it was nice to get into the house where the tea and cakes were on offer (we had to take off our Muck boots before hand, which is not too surprising, as there was a certain amount of mud around on the paths).  It was an impressive spread

and the tea was very welcome.  Everyone rhapsodised about the how wonderful the baked goods were, but actually I wasn’t as impressed as they were; I thought the chocolate stuff wasn’t chocolatey enough, the shortbread wasn’t quite as sweet as I like, and the macaroons were nice enough but not quite the melt-in-the-mouth treat that a proper macaroon can be. They had ginger biscuits, which were nice, and Jane gave the mince pies the thumbs-up; and it was nice to have a rest after struggling along against that relentless wind.

It was less fun to discover, when I got outside, that someone had taken one of my boots and left one of theirs which was slightly, but tellingly, smaller.  It wasn’t a disaster, but it didn’t help my mood having to hobble back to the landing area with one painful foot.  Not even seeing an austral thrush could lift my spirits much.

The tea house had effectively a pet caracara which entertained the guests for food,

and we had further entertainment at the boot-scrubbing party which was a necessary precursor to getting the Zodiac back to Hondius.

After this somewhat dull interval, the day finished with a flourish, though.  Our one-time Stanley resident, Martin, had extolled the beauties of Falkland Islands sunset, and as we headed out of the bay towards our next rendezvous, we were treated to a great display.

The next day, we were due to visit another West Falkland Island, New Island, which also held the promise of seeing some more albatross action – if the conditions allowed.  But the wind was rising, and we would have to wait until the following morning to see what was possible.

 

Falkland Islands 1 – Saunders

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Sunday 10 March 2024 – During yesterday evening’s recap and the briefing for today, Pippa warned us that it might be a bit blowy as we made our way from Stanley, on East Falklands, around the north to Saunders Island, off the coast of West Falkland.

She was right.  It was very blowy.  Hondius did her best, and I suppose it could have been worse; we sailed into the teeth of a westerly of some 50 knots, so the motion was just pitching, rather both pitching and rolling.  But sleep was difficult during the night as we discovered all the bits of the cabin that creaked and rattled as they were shaken up.  However, having arrived at a part of Saunders called The Neck

all appeared to be calm and the sun appeared to be about to rise.  So the landing was On.

The attraction for Saunders was the possibility of seeing a black-browed albatross colony, which would include chicks, something we hadn’t seen before,  When we landed, there were, of course, penguins

and also a reception committee in the form of the owners who turned up in a Land Rover laden with possible goodies for us punters to buy.

We didn’t take up on the offer, but instead set off in search of the albatrosses, past an old try pot, as would have been used by sealers in the Good Old Days

and masses of gentoo penguins, who were moulting, and therefore not all that active.

They were using a considerable breeze to help in the process, and the feathers were everywhere.

Some penguins were building nests, which largely involved stealing building materials from other nest builders

and this was happening all around a variable hawk

which appeared to be eating the remains of a dead penguin.  As with the skua at St. Andrews Bay, the penguins didn’t appear to be too affected by this,

and just carried on moulting around the hawk.

The route we followed to the albatross colony (marked out, as ever, by red poles placed by our guides) led past a uniquely Falkland Islands scene.

Observant readers will note that these penguins are not gentoos, but actually king penguins; there were a few of these around also, some with their fur-coated chicks,

and not, it would seem, in the best of moods at times.  Our track led us past what we assume is an art installation

since it was rather far inland for a whale to have stranded itself on its own – and then have a dolphin land on top of it.  The path led up a hill, past the inevitable uplands geese,

peaty soil

and evidence of a penguin variety we were meeting for the first time – magellanic penguins,

who nest in burrows.  We even found one with a chick in it

and Jane managed to capture a shot that included another inhabitant of that burrow

which we think might have been the mother.  The penguins and their burrows dotted the landscape

to the extent that one had to be a bit careful not to stumble into one as we walked.

Because stumbling became the standard method of progress; as we climbed the hill and rounded the headland

the wind increased enormously, to the point where it was at times difficult to keep one’s balance.  Burrowing suddenly seemed to be quite a good survival strategy.

Shortly after I took the shot above, we passed another penguin colony,

and these were of, again, a variety new to us – rockhoppers.

You can see how impressed they are with the wind. The colony also includes cormorants

which give the rockhoppers added protection, since a skua won’t take on a cormorant.

Finally, in the teeth of a really, really strong wind, we reached the albatross colony, with the chicks clearly visible. Albatross nests are tall mud structures with a concave top, wherein sits first the egg and then the growing chick, which only leaves its “throne” when it is fledged and flies. The nests get taller each year.

This is what the punter had really come to see.

I divided my time between trying not to fall over and watching the behaviour of the parents and chicks.  The chicks were hungry, and pestered the parent for food

which was occasionally dispensed in traditional fashion.

When the parent had dispensed all the food it had brought, it walked away from the chick, faced into wind and

simply flew away.  Yes, I have video….

After a while of watching this we started the journey back to the landing area, which was a little less tiresome as the wind was behind us.  We retraced our steps to find that a few striated caracaras had arrived.

These are birds of a curious disposition, also known as Johnny Rooks, and unafraid of humans – I nearly got a shot of the arse end one which was dive bombing me; and someone else nearly had a hat taken off his head.

We got back to the landing area, where we could see magellanic oystercatchers fossicking about

alongside flightless steamer ducks

kelp gulls and, of course, penguins.

So ended the morning, and we splashed our way back in very gusty winds to Hondius on a Zodiac and headed for lunch.   The afternoon promised a visit to another island and the possibility of tea and cakes, which sounded quite appealing.  Watch this space to see how it turned out.