Plenty Convivial

The weather was a big part of our crossing from Chile to the Falklands.  The biggest.  We bought ourselves a little luck by leaving when we did and taking the chance to move fast when we could and found ourselves just south of a little low pressure system.

All day on the second day of the crossing we could watch the edge of the low (above).  On the south side we had gentle southeasterlies, and then when the low had passed us by we finished with southwesterlies.  Perfect.

Cape petrels

 It was also a great trip for pelagic seabirds.

Giant petrel

Elias is mad for photographing them.  He stands in the cockpit for an hour at a time, wielding a point and shoot set to maximum zoom.

Royal albatross

 Needless to say, these are not his pictures.

Antarctic fulmar

Royal albatross and giant petrel

That picture above would be when the southwesterlies found us.  We have some spare 10mm wire set up as our aft lower on the port side (thank you, Jonathan!), so we were happy to be on port tack when the breeze came in.

Above and below - approaching Stanley.

And below - the town itself.

And we came to rest here - tied in behind some local draggers at the Falkland Islands Company jetty, in company with a handful of yachts.  The sailing scene here is about an order of magnitude smaller than the scene at the Micalvi in Puerto Williams.  Plenty convivial though.