January 18, 2010 – At Sea, 52º 00’S, 058º 04’W
By Herb McCormick
On Sunday, after a week-long stay in the fine and friendly town of Stanley, on East Falkland island, the crew of Ocean Watch sailed out through the Narrows at the mouth of Stanley Harbor, hung a couple of hard rights, and set a course for the protected waters of Port Pleasant. A few hours later, we motored out of the protected waters and into Port Pleasant proper.
Pleasant Island was abeam, just north of Pleasant Point, which of course is the headland marking the little anchorage of Pleasant Roads. Unfortunately, though we have several iPods on the boat, no one had a recording of The Monkey’s old hit, Pleasant Valley Sunday. But not to worry: the day ended with one of the more spectacular sunsets we’ve seen on our journey (not to mention the first one we’d witnessed in the wild, wooly and windswept Falklands), and the night that followed was crisp and clear, with a sensational view of the Southern Cross (also missing in action since arriving in the archipelago) and more than a couple of shooting stars.
Things couldn’t have been more pleasant.
Today, we’re once again underway, this time for the 360-nautical mile push to the famed Patagonian waters of the Beagle Channel, and the town of Puerto Williams nestled along its shores. The Chilean port will serve as the staging area while the crew prepares for the highly anticipated leg around Cape Horn.
It would’ve been, well, pleasant to spend a few days kicking around the western islands of the starkly beautiful Falklands, but in this part of the world, when a weather window opens, it’s highly imprudent not to take advantage of it. So this morning, skipper Mark Schrader checked the forecast and saw favorable winds from the west-northwest scheduled for much of this week, and made the call to weigh anchor and get underway. By mid-afternoon, Ocean Watch had crossed the 52nd parallel and was again on course for a return to South America.
Before setting forth, however, we dropped the dinghy in the water for a quick look around, and mate Dave Logan and I launched our Little Wing carbon-fiber kayaks for a quiet paddle to the small cluster of buildings known as Fitzroy Settlement in the still morning waters.
Our overnight anchorage, eerily, and sadly, had been the scene of some truly unpleasant moments in the not-so-distant past. “It was in Fitzroy Creek,” writes Ewen Southby-Tailyour in his excellent cruising guide, Falkland Island Shores, “that the two Royal Fleet Auxiliary ships the Sir Galahad and the Sir Tristam were anchored on the morning of 8 June 1982 when they were hit by Argentinian aircraft, with the worst single casualty list of the whole campaign. The ships were anchored west of Pleasant Island and due south of the settlement.”
So was Ocean Watch.
We’d seen what appeared to be a small graveyard and the unmistakable war memorial upon arriving in the port. As we set forth in the kayaks, we would’ve been interested to find out more about the place, but there was no one to ask. As we approached the long dock adjacent to the settlement, it began to drizzle, which cast a slight pall on the proceedings. Even more unsettling was the pair of fat turkey vultures eyeing us closely as we paddled under the dock and into a shallow cove. Up on a hill, a closed-pen of dogs began barking wildly. Otherwise, the place looked deserted.
“Spooky,” I said to Logan. It felt like we’d slipped onto the set for a waterborne sequel to The Blair Witch Project.
But that was the last bit of unpleasantness.
Along the shore, Dave spotted a lone king penguin, but that was just the beginning of the fine, feathered friends (hanging out with Logan, I sometimes imagine, must’ve been like kicking back with James Audubon). After paddling out of the cove and up into the shallows of the creek, he pointed out one bird after another: a kelp goose, a couple of pair of steamer ducks, a pair of speckled teals, a variable hawk, and an imperial shag (also known as a cormorant).
There were even a few fish about. “I should’ve brought my fly rod,” he said. “It would’ve been nice to have a single cast in the Falklands.”
But the time for dawdling was over.
Once we’d hauled the anchor and were again underway, we had one more set of visitors, quite likely the same ones who’d greeted us upon our arrival. The small school of what were probably Peale’s dolphins were playful, fetching and energetic, and bid us a Falklands farewell with style and flair. Our days in the islands were a most pleasant interlude in the voyage Around the Americas. But now it’s time to head for Cape Horn.
- Herb McCormick with photographs by David Thoreson
This crew log submitted by Iridium OpenPort and Stratos
