Views from Port Elizabeth
We arrived in Port Stanley at 10:00 a.m. on Monday 10 Nov. All of us tired and weary with the prospect of still having to pack our boxes of equipment into the containers. We eventually unloaded everything in the early evening which then gave us sometime to explore the town. It is spring in the Falklands and equivalent to May in the UK. My first impressions were it is windy, cold and barren place with low lying hills next to sweeping bays; something akin to the western isles of Scotland but colder. Stanley is a scattering of multi-coloured roofs sputtered against the shores of Port Elizabeth. There are just under 3000 people on the Falklands, 1800 of which live in Stanley. In the interior-countryside, people make a living from sheep farming. In Stanley there are 5 pubs, 1 restaurant, a couple of cafes, a couple of supermarkets, gift shops selling loads of tourist penguin memorabilia, a church, government building and swimming pool. My second impression is that most people in Stanley work in the service industry; the tourist trade must bring in a lot of revenue. Stanley is a small compact place. The people are very friendly and very patriotic; there are Union Jacks everywhere as a constant reminder of the Islands heritage and recent history.
Danger Mines: a constant reminder of the Falkland Islanders recent history
Outside Stanley the landscape is very much of upland heath capped with granite rock. The countryside is flat, barren and wind swept. There are no trees anywhere on the Islands, which means you cannot shelter from the almost constant buffeting winds. Sheep are scattered over this rugged terrain; the hardy Carradale’s which have hats of wool covering their heads. By contrast to the stark landscapes, the Falklands is a wildlife haven; Striated Caracara, Turkey Vulture, Falcons and Eagles, Military Starling, Upland and Brent Geese, numerous duck to name but a few are abundant. There are still cordoned off areas with active land mines and many war memorials; a constant reminder of the recent struggles that the Islanders have undergone.
On Tuesday 11 November, I was still aboard RRS James Clark Ross, much to my annoyance. One of the instruments I had been using on the ship broke down early on during the cruise and on Tuesday morning at 8:30am I received a knock at my cabin door. It was the service engineer who had flown all the way from the UK to repair the instrument. By the end of the day I was relieved that the instrument was now working and giving sensible numbers. Over the next few days I will run a series of samples to check that the instrument was fully functioning again whilst the engineer was still in town. There are only two flights a week out of Stanley through an RAF flight to Brize Norton in Oxfordshire.