We boarded the MS Fram mid-afternoon on Sunday, February 19. We decided to get to the dock by walking the 25 minutes from our Punta Arenas hotel (thank goodness for rolling suitcases). About 20 people were already waiting at the port when we arrived. The rest came from the airport about two hours later, having flown in from Santiago where they all gathered the day before.
We checked into the ship and found our cabin, which was small but cozy.
We received our expedition coats, which are bright red Helly Hansen Gore-Tex shells with a yellow hood. We wear those over our own fleece jackets and long underwear. We also picked up heavy knee-length rubber boots which we use when going ashore - many of the Zodiac beach landings are "wet" where we need to step off the side of the boat into the surf.
The Fram has a capacity for about 200 travelers, but we only had 179 aboard for this trip. We heard that some passengers had missed flight connections to Santiago and thus were left behind - Hurtigruten is allowing them to rebook for 2024. We left the Punta Arenas dock around 7 pm local time and had a full day at sea before reaching the Falklands.
Yes, although we'd thought we would be doing this trip counter-clockwise (Antartica-South Georgia-Falklands), we discovered once on board that we would be traveling on a clockwise itinerary instead. However, this would save the most exciting part (Antarctica) for last.
During our three days in the Falklands, we landed on four different small islands and at the capital town of Stanley. The population of the Falklands totals about 3,400. 2,600 people live in Stanley, and the other 800 are scattered around the rest of the islands in what is collectively known as "The Camp."
On Tuesday, we had a morning landing on New Island, a private reserve. Fortunately, the seas were calm - great for our first ride on the Zodiacs and landing on the beach. We hiked across the island to a rookery with a mix of albatrosses and rockhopper penguins. Many of the albatross chicks had grown to almost full size, but were fledglings who still needed to shed their downy feather coats. Albatrosses build circular nests out of mud and guano, and the mothers and chicks sat on these.
The rockhoppers (they're similar to macaronia penguins) have a very distinctive punk look with yellow eyebrows. Their nests are mixed in among the albatross nests.
The Fram's expedition team leaders had set out flags to limit how close we got to the birds.
After two hours onshore, we returned to the ship. A very photogenic wreck greeted us as we waited for our Zodiac pickup.
The ship then cruised to Carcass Island. That afternoon we had a longer walk (about 4 miles round trip) to another beach. Wonder of wonders, the island had a few non-native palm trees on it (the temperature that afternoon was around 50 degrees).
We passed a caracara, a hawklike bird which preys on albatross nests.
Jeannette's knee began bothering her on the uneven surface, so we turned around after having hiked in about a mile-and-a-half.
As we approached the landing beach, we met three magellanic penguins coming the other way.
We also saw a pair of southern geese who, we learned, mate for life. The male is white, the female brown.
Wednesday we had another two landings (morning and afternoon) which will probably be our pattern going forward. The morning landing was at West Point Island, and we had another long walk (about 3 miles round trip), but on a much more even surface, over the crest of the island to an albatross rookery.
As we returned, we stopped at a house that was open for tea and pastries (paid for by the ship, we expected) - a nice break at the end of a long hike.
The afternoon landing was on Saunders Island. We landed on a long beach where a colony of gentoo penguins (with orange bills) greeted us.
We walked over a short rise to an even longer beach. There we saw more penguin varieties, including a few king penguins (they look like proper penguins!) with a young chick.
Sitting above the beach we found a whale skeleton.
On the beach we watched a gentoo mother feeding its almost fully-grown chick.
We watched magellanic penguins coming out of the water, gather into groups, and then march down the beach. They moved faster than we expected
Jeannette also practiced her best penguin walk.
The wind was strong, and downy feathers rolled along the beach and collected in low spots.
On our third and final day in the Falklands we visited Stanley. The town has a very British feel to it.
There is an Anglican Cathedral in town. The cathedral courtyard has an arch made of jawbones from blue whales.
We took a guided "community walk" to learn about Stanley's history, and ended up at a small but informative museum filled with historical artifacts.
There was a very moving exhibit in the museum about the Argentine invasion of the Falklands in 1982 and the British soldiers and sailors who took the islands back - a war which lasted, in total, about 9-10 weeks. We managed to snag a 40th anniversary commerative pin for a former British neighbor of ours who fought in the war and whose ship was damaged by a missile.
After spending the day in Stanley, we returned to the Fram and left the dock around 7:30 pm. Our next destination would be South Georgia. Before arriving, everyone on board had to do a thorough cleaning of their boots to avoid any contamination of South Georgia with flotsam and jetsam from the Falklands. We had to remove any errant seeds with metal picks, then brush, wash, rinse, and disinfect our boots before submitting them for final inspection by two crew members.
We also had to thoroughly vacuum our outerwear, including all velcro closings and pockets. Hurtigruten takes biosecurity VERY seriously!
Please keep your eyes out for our South Georgia blog entry, arriving soon.
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