Antarctica to Zimbabwe – Day 21 – Silver Wind, Falkland Islands

Antarctica to Zimbabwe – Day 20 – Silver Wind, Falkland Islands can be found here.

A good sleep can make a tremendous difference to outlook, morale and so much more. Such was the case for us this morning, thankfully.

We woke early but (mostly) rested at 6:15 am. We were in the middle-of-the-pack in terms of zodiac groups, but still have to get out the door early if we want to eat before we leave.

Off to La Terrazza – I’ll endeavour to get some buffet shots at this point, but I’d say it’s standard fare expect for a noticeable lack of berries. I believe they’re still available but only on request.

I had some smoked salmon and cream cheese on toast, followed up by yoghurt and granola. The kids mostly had cereal though my son also ordered some eggs. Remarkably, they arrived before we needed to leave – a real challenge given how quickly we usually eat.

Back to the room to prepare for our first landing at New Island. We’ve got special backpacks for this trip – they are essentially dry bags with straps.

We initially dismissed these as yet another junky Silverseas backpack, but the waterproofing and practicality of the bags – plus their value in terms of biosecurity – quickly won us over.

We might even try to take one home, despite having essentially zero leeway in our weight limit. Some back-of-the-napkin math indicates that it would take roughly 16 days of toiletry consumption to make up the weight of one of these bags. May be optimistic, but we’ll see!

Wind speeds are really going to be a point of concern on this trip. Much beyond 30 knots, and zodiac landings start to get dicey. Thankfully, we’re in a sheltered spot just outside of New Island so we shouldn’t have trouble making our first landing.

The first few zodiac groups move out quickly and group 4 is called earlier than expected. We land, and then walk perhaps 1 km past stunning scenery – as well as upland geese and striated caracaras – to reach the nesting sites for black-browed albatrosses, king cormorants and rockhopper penguins:

A male uplands goose

A caracara in flight

King cormorants

Fledging black-browed albatrosses

A very grumpy-looking rockhopper penguin

They also have a lovely museum on site which had some great exhibits – including a table of items the kids could touch – as well as a small shop. The kids picked up a caracara pin and a flipbook listing the birds of the Falkland Islands.

Then back to the ship. There was a thoughtful hot chocolate station set up:

We returned to our rooms, and finally managed to take some photos of our rooms in a clean-ish state:

Any mess is solely the responsbility of the inhabitants – our butler and stateroom attendant have been exceptional

It was time to pop down to the Restaurant for lunch:

My wife and I had the Pho:

Followed by the seafood basket:

The kids had pizza and pasta, and then ice cream for dessert:

My son and I headed off to trivia, where we formed a team – the Fab Five – and took second place! Very respectable.

At this point they’d repositioned the Wind, and we were due for our second landing – this time at West Point Island. The hike would be a roughly 100 metre rise and perhaps 6 km of walking. It offered more spectacular views and further wildlife sightings:

Plus tea and cakes at the end!

So, so delicious – it’s a lovely couple who host passengers like us here when they’re not off on adventures – they have a sailboat that they’ve taken through the Drake passage!

Time soon came to return to the ship to unwind for a bit and get ready for dinner.

The theme tonight is flavours of Great Britain:

My wife had the tomato soup as an appetizer:

I had a small portion of the snapper to start:

The kids ordered chicken fingers but got fish and chips – though they still demolished it:

For our mains, my wife had the Turbot:

I had the venison:

And my son ordered a chicken burger:

And our daughter had plain pasta (not pictured).

Our meal was puncuated by a sudden rain storm, which cast a beautiful rainbow:

It was then time to choose our desserts:

My wife had the French cheeses:

Our kids each had a sundae:

And I had the Sambirano:

We got back to the room and looked over tomorrow’s Chronicle:

(I’ll try to get caught up with the earlier ones at some point.)

Another busy day tomorrow with excursions in Stanley, so it was time to get some rest – but not before taking one last look out our verandah to admire the storm-tossed waters:

Continue reading Antarctica to Zimbabwe – Day 22 – Silver Wind, Falkland Islands.