Port stop on cruise. Unusually bright, sunny day... no wind. Went where the tourist bus took us...a peninsula where, in season ( we just missed it), the beaches are swarming with penguins. Stanley, the "capital', quaint enough with a "High" church and "Protestant" church to serve the 2,000 inhabitants. Museum displays the rather harsh living conditions for the first (English) colonists.....huge (stuffed) Southern Royal Albatross hanging from the ceiling....they... fly from New Zealand to the Falklands and back in seasonal migrations. Some memorials to the 1982 conflict with Argentina. Lesser known was a WW I sea battle between the German Pacific fleet making a run for home....deciding to re-coal in Stanley... and the next morning finding themselves trapped in port by the Royal Navy which happened to be heading to Stanley with a need to re-coal itself. The subsequent battle destroyed the German fleet ending any German sea presence in the high seas for the rest of the war. That important...but who knew?
Sunday, March 5, 2017
CRS 2016 - Falklands, Malvinas February
Port stop on cruise. Unusually bright, sunny day... no wind. Went where the tourist bus took us...a peninsula where, in season ( we just missed it), the beaches are swarming with penguins. Stanley, the "capital', quaint enough with a "High" church and "Protestant" church to serve the 2,000 inhabitants. Museum displays the rather harsh living conditions for the first (English) colonists.....huge (stuffed) Southern Royal Albatross hanging from the ceiling....they... fly from New Zealand to the Falklands and back in seasonal migrations. Some memorials to the 1982 conflict with Argentina. Lesser known was a WW I sea battle between the German Pacific fleet making a run for home....deciding to re-coal in Stanley... and the next morning finding themselves trapped in port by the Royal Navy which happened to be heading to Stanley with a need to re-coal itself. The subsequent battle destroyed the German fleet ending any German sea presence in the high seas for the rest of the war. That important...but who knew?
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