January 10, 2010 – Stanley, Falkland Islands
By Herb McCormick
Just before 0600 this morning – six a.m. local time – I was roused from my slumber to come on watch with the usual greeting and a rare instruction: “Bring your camera.” Moments later, on the deck of Ocean Watch, I glanced forward to see skipper Mark Schrader wedged into the bow pulpit, laughing out loud like a school kid on recess. Aft, the athletic David Thoreson was bouncing from beam to beam, light on his feet, working the angles like a prizefighter. Both were raising and lowering cameras.
Raising and lowering: Click, click, click.
That’s because, quite literally, albatrosses surrounded them.
We’ve been sailing through random sightings of the unmistakable creatures for days now, but usually in small groups, and never more than a handful at a time. This was different. On a radiant, sunny morning bathed in clear, pristine light, there were dozens and dozens of birds soaring and wheeling around Ocean Watch.
“There are so many you almost don’t know what to…” said Thoreson, dropping the thought. Scampering atop the dinghy lashed to the afterdeck, he was already on to the next shot.
He was right, it was impossible to know which way to look. There were lone gliders hovering inches atop the wavelets. There were small squadrons of five or six flyers, tacking upwind in perfect alignment, as synchronized as the Blue Angels. Some were landing, an exercise not unlike sailing up to a mooring: head to wind; luff the foils; stop forward motion; alight.
There was poetic justice here. Just hours earlier, at sunset, David T had missed the opportunity to capture a few birds in pastel twilight when the chicken dish he was preparing down below went flying across the galley just as he walked away from the stove for an instant and was ascending the companionway stairs with camera in tow. He was not, to put it mildly, a happy lad.
“A once-in-a-lifetime opportunity missed,” he’d said. But now he was in his element – “painting with light,” our friend, the photographer Billy Black, has called it – the karma gods rewarding a just recipient.
“I never, ever, have witnessed anything like that.” he said later.
Perhaps not coincidentally, just five hours before, at precisely 0119 this morning, Ocean Watch slipped past the 50th parallel on the final approach to Port Stanley in the Falkland/Malvinas isles. You could say those morning birds were a final gift, the icing on the cake. For remarkably, with one relatively brief exception, the dash through the Roaring Forties had been a glorious run blessed with favorable breeze and in the company of those albatrosses. Yes, we’d been slapped around by a rude gale on the first miserable night at sea, but in retrospect, it was a small price to pay for the fine trip that followed. We exited the Forties like gamblers leaving Vegas with pockets full of house money.
It was time to focus on the Falklands.
Actually, yesterday morning, skipper Schrader had already begun to do so in earnest. I’d risen for that watch to find him already poring over the charts and making random observations:
“I don’t know if you want to be on a jetty, they have these Norway rats the size of raccoons. Seriously.”
And: “Stanley harbor is just littered with wrecks. Boom-ditty-boom. Welcome to the tourist mecca.”
He was also studying a document, one related to the historic, kooky 1982 war between Argentina and England over the sovereignty of the place, with more than casual interest. The heading read, “Stanley Minefield and Area Clearance Situation Map.” I had a closer look myself. It was color-coded for easier reference, and broken down into three sections, as follows:
“Category 1/Blue: These areas have been checked by the Royal Engineers and are believed to be safe.”
Wait: Believed to be safe? Not exactly brimming with confidence, there, eh, guv’nor? Let’s move on.
“Category 2/Blue stripes: There is no evidence at all (my italics) that these areas contain minefields or booby traps.”
Great! But there’s more:
“However, they may contain unexpected bombs, ammunition, missiles, etc.”
Now wait just a bloody minute. Et Cetera?!?
And finally: “Category 3/Red: These areas are known to contain mines or booby traps. DO NOT ENTER. This includes all minefields that have a water line as a boundary.”
These are solid red blotches on the map of Port Stanley, and there are a lot of them, lovely, vivid symbols of man’s endless, mindless yearnings. As always, we jest (sort of), but this is our first brush with ordnance, and we’re unsettled. Clearly, the crew of Ocean Watch is headed for uncharted waters, figuratively speaking, in their travels thus far.
Actually, that’s not entirely true, for Ocean Watch’s visit to the Falklands is a homecoming of sorts for our well-traveled skipper. Twenty-seven years ago (!), in December, 1982, on his first circumnavigation aboard a Valiant 40 called Resourceful, Mark paid an unexpected call at Port Stanley with mechanical problems. His eventful stay included dragging anchor across the harbor and celebrating New Year’s at the Governor’s House, where he was feted like a celebrity.
Mark’s memories of the island and its people, and his fondness for them both, are infectious. All week, as we drew neared to Port Stanley, he’s been thumbing through the guidebooks and providing previews of coming attractions, a few of which he’s jotted down in his Captain’s Log.
We all need to watch out for Leopard Seals and Elephant Seals, the latter of which, “if a person is silly enough to try and pet one,” might roll on you and crush you.
“Jackass Penguins (one of five species on the islands, which number some 200 overall, and which cover roughly 80 x 170 statute miles) are plentiful and live in burrows apparently not unlike rabbit burrows. They are dangerous only if you are foolish enough to stick your finger into an occupied Jackass burrow. You will survive…but it will be minus a finger.”
If we find ourselves in a survival situation, Mark notes, “The Diddle-dee plant might be key to our being found alive – and full of delicious Diddle-dee berries. Reportedly, eaten fresh they taste like Campari, and are used to make jam and wine. More importantly, the bush will make an excellent signal fires which lights easily no matter how wet and windy conditions may be.”
The plant was once used as a means to communication; fires set in a different pattern sent different messages. One of the downsides to this is a possible peat fire. “When the underlying peat catches fire it may burn below the surface for years, decidedly not good for the pasture or the sheep,” Mark writes.
Oh yes, there are 600,000 sheep. But they aren’t the only critters.
Mark advises, “Stay away from the wild cattle on Wickham Heights and the Guanaco, a llama-type animal on Beaver Island – both have been known to attack humans! And last, beware of seal wallows – deep pits at the back of beaches, in which seals have sloughed their skins. These may be deep, steep sided and filled with slime and mud. Escape may be difficult.”
Armed with this knowledge, this afternoon, after the unforgettable morning session with the birds, we made our final approach to the islands.
The Falkland Islands are as famous for their changeable weather as they are for their wildlife, scenery, and unfortunately, war. From thirty miles out, under totally sunny skies, the islands ahead were covered in cumulus. As we got closer, squall lines appeared. “I have known the wind to rise by one Beaufort scale each minute up to Force 8 where it remained for some hours; in other words it is more than a local and short-lived squall that can build up to this speed,” writes Ewen Southby-Tailyour in his wonderful cruising guide, Falklands Islands Shores (from which the skipper gleaned much of his earlier facts and trivia).
We got a taste of it in our final miles. The squalls came through. It was rainy. It stopped. It was sunny. Then cloudy. Rainy. Clear. Gray. Drizzly. Sunny. The next ten minutes were equally eventful.
There was a moment of deja-vu. When the skies parted enough to register our surroundings, the islands – low, barren, brown, spooky – looked startlingly like the landscape we’d encountered above the Arctic Circle, sailing through the Northwest Passage.
“We’re in Gjoa Haven again,” said the skipper.
The next step was to hoist our courtesy flag, the British flag, up the rigging. “Which side is up?” I said to Mark, as a joke; in haste, we’d already consulted the Atlas to make sure. Everyone knows the distinctive Union Jack is symmetrical, right?
“I want to make an impression coming in,” he said, as he sent it skyward.
Then, finally, we were on the final approach: the hills lined with tussocks, except, on a high hill, a turret. Dave Logan steered Ocean Watch through the narrow cut into wide Stanley Harbor. Big bullets of breeze came honking down the strait as we scrambled to drop the mainsail. The docks of the Falkland Islands Company were straight ahead. Landing was going to be sporty. Luckily, at the last minute, a helpful fellow in a red slicker appeared out of nowhere. We heaved a line ashore. He got it around a bollard. I scrambled onto the pier to help him out. Logan nestled the boat alongside. Mark secured the lines. We were there.
Our Good Samaritan was named Marcello; he worked for the company. He was a fount of friendly information. When everyone had caught their breath, he looked at us sheepishly and said, “Just one thing. I just got a call from up the hill.
“That flag?” he said, pointing at the British ensign flapping in the breeze.
“It’s upside down.”
We all gazed aloft, jaws slack. The Yankees had arrived in the Falklands.
- Herb McCormick with photographs by David Thoreson
This crew log submitted by Iridium OpenPort and Stratos
