The Land that Wind Remembered

We are sitting here at Barren Island, taking the chance to show our local friend what sort of stuff we're made of.

Not sterner stuff, us.

We're on our way from Stanley, at the far eastern end of the Falkland Islands, out to the local friend's island, at the far western end. Those of you who remember Mr. Coriolis from some long-ago dose of pedagogy will instantly twig that this can be an inconvenient direction of travel for a small vessel in the 50s, South latitude.

And so we are sitting here at Barren Island, listening to the wind whistle in the rig and firm in our determination not to get lured out for further westward travel until things calm down, already. We are helped in our determination by the fact that our rig is still held in place with bits of string, and will remain so until we can return to Stanley to claim the new rigging that has come down from England on a ship. But even without that excuse, we might be slow to bash into it all that much.

Luckily, we are anchored next to two little islands that are blessed by a number of southern elephant seals and South American sea lions. The views that we had ashore yesterday, of molting sea lions roaring at each other, was the wildlife spectacle that you might imagine. On the main Barren Island there are Magellanic penguins and giant petrel colonies and various rock shags and steamer ducks and cobb wrens to keep us content.

So there are much much worse places to wait a bit.

Alisa occasionally looks around and says, "Where ARE we?" And it's true. For all the out-of-the-way places that we've been too, these windy windy flat islands on the edge of the Falklands give the best impression of end-of-the-world-ness that I can remember seeing anywhere. There are sheep on the islands, and cattle, and houses for the people who are not here just now. It's a very intriguing scene, very different indeed from anything we are used to.

Tourists and Travelers

Being a tourist: paying a hefty entrance fee to visit a king penguin colony.
Being a traveler: having a local friend give you two gentoo penguin eggs (hard-boiled) for breakfast a couple days later.

Our friend warned us that the whites would stay translucent after the eggs had been boiled.

They tasted great - thanks to our "local friend"!

From what I gather, collecting penguin eggs is a long-standing part of life in the Falklands, just like collecting seabird eggs is a long-standing part of life in out-of-the-way northern locales.  We felt lucky to be able to experience that bit of traditional Falklands life.

Twenty Miles

Our heroes

So, there are king penguins in the Falklands.

Our crew was dead keen to see king penguins.  If we didn't get Elias in front of some king penguins, we might as well sell the boat and move back to Alaska to be pig farmers, for all he cared.

There is one notable king penguin colony in the Falklands, at Volunteer Point.  Unfortunately, the closest place we cared to land the dinghy was at Magellan Cove, more than ten land miles away.

Elias could do a twenty-plus mile walk to see king penguins, we were sure.  Eric insisted he was game.  About him we weren't so sure.

Setting out.

The terrain - land rover tracks over grazing land.  Perfect walking.

I'll end the suspense.  Both boys did an incredible job.  No whining, no asking to be carried (by Eric). They spent most of the walk split up, one kid next to one parent, each kid yammering on a mile a minute about imaginary planets and what their (imaginary) lives in Alaska would be like.  Eric was skipping at the very end of the walk.

And, wouldn't you know it.  I walked all the way there and forgot my long lens! 

I came up with some ok pics all the same.

Kings on the beach

Gentoo penguins

Magellanic penguin

Boy and penguins

Boy and smile and penguins

The place is quite the tourist attraction, and gets regular visits from groups large and small.  We were lucky enough to be there with just one photographer.

The penguins were doing their "we're not frightened of people" act.  The trumpeting sound of the kings was magical.  As was the whole scene, really.

King penguins have this cool life history that results in breeding attempts at different stages in the process being present in the colony at one time.  During our visit there were adults incubating eggs on their feet (oh, how incredibly cool is biology?!), and also nearly-fledged chicks, some of whom were molting into subadult plumage.

I had a distinct impression of king penguins as nothing more than evolved devices for delivering marine lipids to shore

We had to get going sooner than we liked - the summer days in the Falklands are long, but only so long.

We arrived back at the boat just at sunset, with a distinct feeling of accomplishment for all.  Eric got the "You Are Special" plate at dinner to recognize his outstanding effort.

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