Friday, January 17th, 2025

I awoke, in pitch darkness, with the classic thought of “where am I ?” – but scarcely had that enquiry condensed, than what appeared to be my constantly shifting centre-of-gravity gave me the answer. I was in my little bed ( I had the adjective “truckle” teed up there, but I am not certain that would be wholly accurate as I believe those have wheels) – and I was also on a ship, out on the restless waves.. ..

Strangely, I must have gone straight back to sleep, because the next time I knew anything, it was light. Because of the alignment of the bed, the rolling motion of the ship was actually translating into an alternate rise and fall of my head in relation to my feet and was not actually too unpleasant. It was just a little bit disconcerting until I became used to it. Lucie woke up at that moment as well.

We both felt quite fine – even though, when trying to walk, the movement of the deck beneath our feet was quite alarming. Maybe those anti-seasickness pills had worked. We took another one each, but Lucie was not that keen to do so as it had made her thick-headed as well as drowsy. In the event, neither of us took any more of the pills after that and we were both fine for the whole remainder of the voyage.

It was not yet breakfast time but on the deck above us was a lounge that was open twenty-four hours a day and where there were hot drinks. As soon as it got light enough to really see the endless rolling grey waves outside of our window, we both gravitated there. A few other restless souls appeared and we sat watching the Petrels, Shearwaters and the occasional Albatross skimming across the water.

I mentioned, yesterday, the statistical implausibility of meeting someone who had been born and lived so close to where I grew up in England. The same guy, Martin, was already up too and joined us where we were sitting. Within seconds we had discovered that he was still friendly with a guy that I had attended junior school with (and whose sister was one of my early paramours). Almost even more unbelievably, Martin had once been a policeman in Luton, and his station was three doors down from my house there. I was at a point where I scarcely dare say anything more to him, lest I discovered he is some long-lost blood relative.

According to the ship’s Log our position was 53°56.6’S / 063°56.0’W

Breakfast time arrived and we went to get some. This was, in truth, something that I had not expected to be able to look in the eye, but I actually felt quite peckish. There was a good selection of the “standards” including, Oh dear ! fried bacon ! But you like bacon, I hear you all cry. Exactly ! That is why I always eat too much of it whenever I get the opportunity – and I was going to be trapped on a ship with some for eighteen more days ….

Whether it was a surfeit of bacon (how lucky lamphreys were not on offer), or the pills still making us sleepy, but we went back to both our beds and our sleep, straight after breakfast.

On “sea” days, there were a series of talks and lectures to keep us amused, so I roused myself to attend one given by one of the crew about the Falkland Islands which would be our first port of call.

Tiphanie (her spelling, by the way) was sheep farmer’s daughter, from a farm whose entire output of Merino wool is exported to the Czech Republic. She painted a fascinating picture of a twenty-first century life that is radically different from the one that we enjoy. Not in a bad way, per-se, but with a whole spectrum of pluses and minuses which would render it almost unrecognisable to people in most places. As a few examples, she can walk out of her house on the Falklands and watch whales basking in the waters of the bay. However, she cannot tell anyone about it by email, because the internet is less than useless (this may change with Mr Musk’s “star-link”), she cannot ring anyone on her mobile, unless she walks to the end of the beach at low tide for a signal and, if she manages to order something from Amazon, it can take four months to come. Tiphanie’s Master’s Degree, completed in the UK, was entirely funded by the Falkland Islands government. The funding came with the weird proviso that, should she fail, she would have to pay back the entire cost …..

The tricky subject of the Argentinian “sovereignty” claim of course reared its head. Tiphanie was at pains to point out that a referendum, in 1993, voted 99.8% to stick with the UK and that this is a proportion that is unlikely ever to change. Having lost a war they started to gain control of the islands in 1982, the Argentinians continue make the islanders’ lives difficult in any petty way they can. They refuse, for instance, to allow teams from the Falklands to compete in sporting contests under their national flag and name. There have been, Tiphanie remarked with a wry grin, a significant number of victories by teams dubbed “The rest of the world”. It was an interesting peek into a rugged existence.

The next talk was on the birdlife of the Falklands and was given by Martin. After he retired as a UK policeman, Martin came to the Falkland Islands because he was bored. He worked as a Falklands’ policeman for two years, but it was really a job for only about two days a week. As it seemed a lot of Falkland Islanders do, he then got involved in various ecological projects. As a keen “birder”, amongst the other things he did was counting birds.

Even though the chat covered only the birds we might see and was, therefore, far from exhaustive, I was surprised that there was one square inch (British Protectorates use Imperial measurements) of land that was not occupied by some form of Albatross, Petrel, Shearwater, Gull, Wren or Penguin.

It was, as always, the penguins that attracted the most attention. It seems that two species, the Southern Rockhopper and the Macaroni can interbreed. The very idea of this miscegenation seemed to thrill the audience and there was (rather too) much discussion over whether the products of these unnatural unions should be called MacHoppers or Rockaronis …..

For lunch, I forced myself to stick to salad although I probably added too much cheese. The only thing I cannot say no to is, unfortunately, temptation. With such a cornucopia of delights on offer, I knew I would have to be careful. One of the guides, Szymon, a Pole from Krakow who has friends in the Czech Republic, joined us. The crew certainly made big efforts to be friendly and to make us feel at ease.

The first afternoon lecture was given by Koen and was largely concerned with how to take good pictures. It was not really for us, we tend to point and hope. Phrases like “exposure time” and so on are really gibberish to me. Koen did show some beautiful photos, but some of them, as he admitted, took hours of waiting and thousands of shots. There was, on board, a group of photographers who devoured it all.

Mid-afternoon brought a compulsory safety briefing on how not to die horribly whilst going ship to shore and vice-versa in a Zodiac inflatable boat. The talk was thorough, informative and seemed to cover every possible angle – but I was sure that I would still find a way to do it !

Considering that we had nothing really to do – there was a lot on !

We were soon summoned again to have the plans for the following day explained to us. The Plancius had, it seemed, made good time despite what I would have described as heavy seas and would anchor for the night in the sheltered lee of New Island in West Falkland. This was a change of plan brought about by some very much higher than expected wind speeds. We would be able to make two separate landings or, as I saw it, I would have four separate opportunities to fall into the sea.

Dinner was next. It was a more “set” meal, this time and the food was very good. We shared a table with Wanda (of course) and a retired biology teacher from Essex, also called David. The “socialising” aspect of this trip was one of the aspects that I had been dreading but, in truth, most of the people on the ship were adventurers, like us, not tourists. The crew had repeatedly pointed out that this was an expedition, not a cruise !

The following day would start early, so bedtime was early too. We had been cautioned to completely close our cabin blinds so that the light did not to confuse nocturnal birds whilst we were at anchor. Strangely, even after essentially sitting around and doing nothing all day, we both went to sleep almost immediately !

The following morning would see us on the Falkland Islands !