This morning (in less than a couple of hours) we will push out of here, saying goodbye to these Islands after spending 3 weeks around them – fascinating place. We will then head vaguely east north east and aim for Tristan da Cunha and from there, further eastward to Cape Town. This morning is dark and very cold, with light winds coming from the south right now (Antarctica!). They will swing to the west in a day or so and now to the northwest and push us over the ocean. I have some observations and the like about the Falklands and I’ll get around to sending those once we get used to our watch system and establish a routine on the boat.

For now, thanks for reading and thank you to all who who sent good wishes and the like.

Pip pip

When Friday morning came about – the weather was still blustery and a little grey. We sailed over Whale Bay (well – motor sailed) and up a tiny creek to another yet another settlement – this time to ask permission to go and visit another inlet just a couple of miles south. Once granted, we re-positioned to the new outlet called Crooked Inlet (you can imagine why – yes, because it was). This narrow channel with steep cliff faces on either side meandered its way in land and then opened up into an internal natural bay. We pulled the boat into a narrow side channel and tied up to rocks front and back and nestled in for the day. Now that sounds like a throw away comment – tied up to the rocks front and back – not quite so simple. If you were doing a risk assessment (there goes that term again) you would have to include the following: no common language, no previous experience of doing this for well over half the crew, a wind that was backing and veering, and numerous other things. So the “tech” for this is to drop a person off on a chosen rock together with a very large wire strop (like a heavy duty circle of thick steel wire, like 3/4 of an inch thick.) The rock has to have been assessed as being big enough and attached to the shore well enough to take the strain. The strop is placed over the rock and checked that it will not slip off. Once you have the port and starboard rocks sorted with their strops, very long lengths of polypropylene line are pulled from the boat by whoever is in the dingy, passed ashore and then tied to the strop with a robust bowline knot. Once both port and starboard are attached, the slack is taken out of the lines and the boat is set secure at the front and then the stern lines can be attached. Simple – almost!

Everything was going well, regardless of the lack of a common language and the lack of specific experience. I attached my bowline to the strop and waited for the strain to be taken up and then I would be picked up by the dingy to go and tackle the stern lines. The strain was taken up and everything looked good. I was looking at the boat to see what was happening when all of a sudden there was an almighty crash behind me and the massive rock we were attached to was rolling down the incline towards the sea with “gusto.” I was directly in its way. I had been very careful, even cautious to make sure I had good foot hold when I had clambered onto the shore initially to do the job. By the way, the shore was a cliff face. As I heard the crash I instinctively dived to the side, faster than I may have moved in some time. I then looked behind me to see this huge boulder unseated and 4 feet from where it had been initially. This tells you two things: 1) the forces involved with this boat are huge and 2) I hadn’t chosen the best boulder (I was given significant advice on which one to go for.) To cut to the chase – we spent the next 10 minutes undoing what we had done, retrieving the strop now trapped under the boulder (not an easy job) and then gingerly choosing another place to tie up to! With the job finally done, we were set for the rest of the day and the night – firmly tied up in the middle of the channel and safely being held off the rocks on either side. Some went off to fish for dinner and some of us stayed behind to…… not fish! Those who went ashore returned without fish and a new dinner plan needed to be made.

The weather for the next day was forecast as gale force winds from the West – which was the direction we needed to go if we wanted to head further out into the most western islands of the Falklands. We decided to just relocate the boat into the natural harbor further up the main channel and have a little explore of the surrounding countryside. That involved a reversal of the previous day’s activity, this time with a lot of speed so that the lines are pulled back on board before they drift back into the prop and bugger the entire boat up. Again, we managed to make it happen and we were free to move off. I have to say, Alec, the boat’s permanent skipper has a deft, tough maneuvering this thing about – very impressive. So that’s what we did, reposition into the open water, drop the hook and then 6 of us set out in the dingy – with a fishing rod and a fishing net to see what mischief we could get up to – and apparently, quite a lot. Firstly, we got well and truly soaked driving through fairly large waves caused by the strong wind whipping over the water (and I mean large waves – about 4 feet high and we were in a 14 foot inflatable dingy) and then upon entering a narrow channel and heading up to find fish, we hit a large rock and broke one of the three propeller blades off! Never mind, this was stunning scenery (because it was quite bleak and narrow, but it opened up at its head a plateau). It got really quite cold in the strengthening wind.

While 4 of the 6 of us stood around, the other two tried their luck with the fishing rod while progressively moving up stream. The rod yielded only 3 smallish fish – not enough to take back to the boat as spoils for supper. However, Alec stretched the net across the little river and that yielded 3 fairly large fish and 1 very large one – and so we ate what we caught together with large potato wedges cooked in the oven – the nearest thing to fish and chips we could do! The fish was fresh and awesome and baked stuffed with lemon and herbs by a combination of the Colombian and Latvian team members. I provided a more Irish input – the spuds!

Pip pip

In order to put a plan together for James to be moved off the boat back to Stanley, the first step was to make contact with folks in Stanley who operate the plane service that goes around the various settlements. While there are some scheduled pick ups, generally it works like a taxi service – call it the Uber of Islands. The nearest place for us to go to be able to communicate effectively with Stanley, was the settlement on West Point, the Island we were sitting just off. All of the islands are linked through a microwave satellite system giving access to both voice and data. Once everyone was up and at it, we sailed the boat the short sail into the beautiful bay directly in front of the settlement and then Alec headed off to use the farmer’s phone. His mission identified that the earliest available flight would be the following day from Carcass Island – a short sail from West Point, back up Byron Sound. This meant we now had no major deadlines for the day. James was in no imminent danger and he was feeling well enough to stay with us another day. Had this been an emergency, there is a helicopter rescues service that could have made the trip, but this wasn’t an emergency, his condition was under control.

The new plan left us with enough time to explore West Point, see the Albatross nesting grounds, meet the farmer and still sail over to Carcass Island in plenty of time that afternoon. So that’s what we did. The walk to the nesting grounds took us about 40 minutes, up and over a hill, and on an outcrop just above the crashing waves of the Atlantic. What we saw was an incredible collection of nesting pods, some occupied by young Albatross who had yet to make their first flight. These nesting pods stand anything from a foot tall, to well over two feet – made from mud and compacted materials, they are perfectly round and on top there is an indentation, like a bowl, where the female and male albatross will incubate their eggs. Good lord, I was having a David Attenborough moment, but strangely loving it! There was unlikely to be another opportunity in my lifetime, to be this close to an Albatross in the wild. While in London, I frequently cycle past regent’s Park Zoo – but that doesn’t count does it?  We were able to walk through the thick, high, tussock grass and get within 2 feet of one occupied nest. Sitting off at a discrete, but still threatening distance, sat about 8 Turkey Vultures waiting for something bad to happen – so they could then swoop in and clean up.

As we walked back to the landing area, we passed the farm building, and our Colombian friends Ernesto and Juan spotted a couple of old, wasted LR Defenders parked up behind a hut. They were wrecks, the Land Rovers, not Juan and Ernesto. However, upon closer inspection, guess what they found? Yes, the part they had been in search of! In fact, between the two vehicles there were several of them and they were working, even if nothing else was. As we celebrated this discovery with them, Alan the farmer pulled up on his quad bike. After introductions all round and sharing the parts story, he told Ernesto and Juan they were welcome to take what they needed and he even offered to get some tools to make it easier. Alan’s wife, Jackie pulled up on her dirt bike and the plan expanded to include coffee in their kitchen. And so, we ended up drinking hot coffee and eating homemade cakes and biscuits, and hearing all about life on the Islands, in the comfort of Alan and Jackie’s cosy, hundred year old kitchen. While the way these folks live may seem quite basic to us, they proudly showed us the recently added luxuries – a fridge/freezer and a microwave – that we would call basics back home. What they described from a lifestyle point of view, was a comfortable life that they thoroughly enjoyed. They valued their surroundings more than their possessions. They loved the work they did – the land and the sheep. They clearly had alternative paths they could have taken in life but this was their choice one. This was not a hardship or an imposition, it was a choice and they were very, very happy with the life they lived.

Something struck me and here it is. While this was a remote island, set within a remote set of islands, miles from anywhere, where people visiting is more an exception than a rule, here for the second time we were talking to really “normal people.” They consider living here to be normal. Somehow, I had expected that we would be greeted by people who were more likely to be recluses – who might shy away from the company of outsiders, having decided to live out on these remote settlements. These folks very much consider themselves Falkland Islanders and they are fierce when it comes to their independence and allegiances. They are closely related to the mothership, the UK, but not part of it. They never want to be part of Argentina. This is a serious subject to them and it should never be taken lightly. They send their children back to the UK to be educated from aged 16 or so (if they want to go) and both the farming families we met, have close family connections back in the UK. So when I said “these people seem normal,” I think that was the conclusion we all agreed upon. Of course, normal is a relative term – and I’m not sure I have the right to judge anyone as being normal, it seems condescending, but I think you’d say the same if you met them. I’m not sure sailing the South Atlantic would qualify me as being normal!

After re-boarding the boat, we headed off back into Byron Sound on the short sail to Carcass Island. The name Carcass – led to us having a conversation with our Colombian friends, who felt compelled to ask about the difference between a cadaver, a skeleton and a carcass. I don’t think we were terribly convincing or clear in our definitions of each. But here’s the thing – apparently, and we didn’t find this out until later that day, Carcass Island is named after a naval ship and not because of anything gruesome. The naval ship was, in turn, named after the small pouch a musketeer would used to carry his gunpowder. I’d like to verify this, but where’s Google when you most need it? We arrived at Carcass in beautiful sunshine and completely calm seas. I stayed on board to make a call to settle some business that I needed to attend to (again, the wonders of Satellite meant I was able to do my duty!) and some of the others headed-in to explore the settlement a little. Once back on board, Alec announced the weather was right for a BBQ and so with pork ribs roasting off the back of the boat, we enjoyed mussels cooked in white wine for the appetizer. Boy, this was hard to take in – having a soirée on the back of a boat in the Falkland Islands in stunning (but cold) weather! James was well enough to join us, but it was clear he still very much needed to go and get sorted if he was to stand any chance of making the Ocean passage. We finished another night down in the saloon chatting and drinking wine. We didn’t have to deposit James on the Island until 9.30am the next morning and only then after the plane was confirmed to have taken off and heading our way. Some of the party, not me though, may have pushed on a little later into the night on the basis that we were going to have a later start the next morning and some showed distinct evidence of their late evening when they showed up on deck the next morning!

So, the next morning dawned hazy, blustery and cold, with a low cloud base, and we wondered whether this might put James’ departure in jeopardy. But no, these guys aren’t put off by a little low cloud and so word came over the VHF to confirm we needed to deposit James on the Island as planned so they could transport him over to the landing strip, which was just a strip of land wide enough, long enough and reasonably straight enough to take the twin prop plane that serviced these Islands. There was a landing strip on West Point, over the hill from the farm and within spitting distance of the sea and there were times when planes could land – depending on the wind. Alan, the Farmer over there, had explained that he and his wife couldn’t both fly off the island at the same time, because there needed to be someone on the ground who could operate the emergency equipment and fire truck! In the relatively recent past, a plane had crashed on the island while trying to take off and one of the passengers had broken a leg. I’ll never again complain about Southwest.  Once the mission of depositing James was achieved, we upped anchor and made our way out into Byron Water once again, and back up to West Point, bound for our anchorage for the night off a small island (Hummock Island) in Whalers Bay off to the south west. The day continued to be grey and cold as we sailed back into Hope Harbour and then a quick turn to starboard out into the Atlantic, sailing past a stark headland called Death Head – a creative and reassuring name for a huge lump of sheer rock facing out over the Atlantic.

The Island we were heading to was only about 20 miles from Carcass and an easy sail. It was now owned by a conservation trust and a couple who Alec and Giselle knew who were there building a small house that would be used in the summer by scientists and the like who would both study and work on conservation issues. The couple, Ken and Sally, had only recently finished circumnavigating the Southern High Latitudes on their old 32 ft steel hulled boat. They had headed around Cape Horn, up the coast of Chile, then over the Pacific to New Zealand via French Polynesia – on to Tasmania and Western Australis, up to South Africa and back across the South Atlantic to the Falklands. Ken had also sailed his boat up the Atlantic to the UK and back. This boat was well under half the size of Pelagic and many, many years older, but she was sturdy and they trusted both the boat and their sailing and navigating skills completely. It was almost a little shameful, for us to have even the slightest doubt about our trip over to South Africa given the resources and the boat at our command. Maybe any doubts we may have – and I’m not saying I have any – but if I was to have any, maybe it would be personal doubt and not about the boat. Both Thomas (our first mate) and Dave (who will skipper the boat across) have sailed this passage numerous times and they most likely have a very well honed sense of self preservation, so no doubt we can have great confidence in their ability, even if we might doubt our own – very reassuring – case closed!

Once the anchor was down off Hummock Island, we launched the dingy and took it over to the to meet the couple, take a look at the house they were building and to understand more about the conservation work they were undertaking. As with everyone else we met, they were very interesting people. We took a walk up and over one of the hills to look at the work they had undertaken to help save the vegetation on the Island. We learned all about the erosion of the top soil and vegetation,  a cycle caused by over population of sheep in the past and now encouraged by climate change (the place only gets 12 inches of rain). The conservation trust, of which Sally was a trustee, is now planting tussock grass and Boxwood to try and head off the erosion which, if left to its own devices, will in time make the Island barren (apparently). I have to confess, it seemed to me to be a bit of a long shot – but what do I know about such matters. It was a large enough island to need a huge amount of planting to just counteract the current level of damage and already, the planting they had done only worked spasmodically. Below the very shallow top soil, the Island is just a huge peat bog, and the top layer of peat that is exposed once the top soil is blown away, was like dark black coal dust. It meant everything was brown or black, including Ken and Sally. This was dirty work. In any event, they showed us the work they’d completed so far on the house, which was like a scene from the HGTV program called something like – Remote Cabin Builders of the Falklands (don’t laugh – there are a number of programs on TV back in the U.S. about building in remote parts – aren’t there, Alice?) Even in this remote setting, they are able to get all the supplies they need (tax free) delivered to the Island – dumped on the beach and needing to be carried to the build site. The house was already looking quite cozy and another winter and it should be done. The folks who originally came and colonized these Islands had to bring everything they needed with them, or face an uncomfortable wait for months or even years for additional supplies to be sent. If only they’d had Amazon Prime and access to a fleet of drones! From a building material’s point of view, there isn’t any lumber and the stone is too difficult to extract, so houses were and are, by and large made with imported wood with metal roofs. Most of the older houses have corrugated metal for the roof, the newer ones have raised metal seam instead. There is a frontier look to these houses, but really quaint.

While they build the house, Ken and Sally live on their boat which is anchored in a little sheltered bay, right of the house. I asked about showering facilities on the boat and they laughed – yes the boat had a sort of shower, but it wasn’t great and the water wasn’t always warm! Remember, I mentioned that everything was black or brown from the peat, including them. Alec and Giselle invited Ken and Sally to come aboard Pelagic and have a hot shower, a cocktail and dinner, which they did and an educational conversation ensued. Ken was very humble about his achievements and Sally emphasized how they loved their long passages at sea away from the world, especially when they hit doldrums – no wind. Ken told us that after a day or so, they would likely get a few knots of wind – may be 3 or 4 and he could get the boat moving again at 5 knots. Well, to get Pelagic to go at 5 knots we probably need about 15 knots of wind in the first instance so we would be sat a long time in the doldrums. This baby needs a lot to get it going and then a lot to stop if once she is going, (that’s why she has a bloody big engine and she carries a lot of fuel – just in case!)

I decided to hit the hay quite early and I left the others talking, although by that time, we’d all learned way more about grass conservation and it’s fundamental importance than any of us envisaged necessary and there were certainly a few poorly disguised yawns. Only the day before I’d had a David Attenborough moment and now I was too close to being in an episode of Country File (a BBC program about the countryside and what’s new and interesting). I needed to get a grip of myself, and take stock before another environmental episode was presented the following day. It didn’t help that we had just eaten Thomas’ Lasagna, which was absolutely excellent, but this wasn’t light food and I needed to lie down! I went to my bunk via the deck where I did my nightly download from the satellite and also put a call into Bernadette who was in NYC with Karen and Josh (closest of friends from the U.K., Mother and son, friend and Godson). She was having a blast and about to have dinner. I was heading to bed. It was 7.30pm in NYC and 8.30pm here on the Falklands and 12.30am in the U.K., so only the U.K. offered me the option of a more normal bed time. Clearly my new status as an Eco-Warrior was taking its toll!

Pip pip

The wind was strong on Tuesday morning as we raised the anchor, raised the main and raised our spirits in anticipation of a great day’s sailing. Ernesto, one of my colleagues from Colombia, was going to navigate us through the Pebble Sound and Byron Sound and out to the West End of West Falkland. This was a huge challenge – but he approached it with gusto – and no, that’s not another member of the crew – so may be now is the right time to start to introduce the rest of the team!

Firstly, Ernesto is one of two Colombians amongst us. He and his sailing buddy, Juan, are both lawyers. Ernesto is in his early 50’s and an accomplished lawyer, specializing in, amongst other things, human rights and risk management (yes, me neither – but he understands it). He also happens to be an enthusiastic and accomplished cook, not to mention a thoroughly nice guy. He was the one who reached out to me from Santiago to try and help figure out the flight situation when things went tits up with LATAM. He has only been learning English since January and he is doing incredibly well. His friend Juan, is the youngest amongst us at 30. He and Ernesto are family friends. Jean is a Yacht Master Ocean, the highest qualification for a leisure sailor. His English is exceptional and he also speaks German, being of Colombian and German heritage. His Spanish seems pretty good too! While Juan has the exuberance of someone of his age, there is no arrogance at all and his naturally inquisitive nature means he asks a lot of very good questions. Collectively they are really good fellow crew members in every way. They came on this trip with a second objective, other than to sail the Southern Ocean. Ernesto has an old LandRover Defender back in Colombia and some 10 years ago Juan broke off a knob that controls the air vent under the windscreen (there goes that exuberance again). The Falklands used to boast to having more LandRover Defenders per capita than any other country in the world and I can now attest that it has more abandoned Defenders than I have ever seen. So Ernesto and Juan came with the anticipation of finally finding this illusive part – here in this huge LandRover graveyard. After trying a salvage yard in Stanley,  they were advised to try a farmer out on a settlement, and it just so happened that this was the settlement we visited last Sunday. Sadly, no dice, but Nick, the farmer told them to make contact when they got back and he would help them locate it. Stay tuned for the latest on the part hunt!

Next up is my cabin-mate Edgar. Edgar lives and works in Malmo, Sweden. He is Latvian and had to do his military service with the Soviet Army. Luckily, he was sent to the Czech Republic and not Afghanistan, which was the most likely place to have been sent at that time. He is now a Trauma Doctor in Sweden, where he lives with his Swedish family. Being a Doctor is a big plus on the boat – our very own Doctor in case of emergency. He has that quiet, precise demeanor that is so common in Scandinavian and Baltic folk. It’s not necessarily declarative, just precise and it balances against the very relaxed approach of the Colombians.

Then, in the middle, we have Tig, who is from Canada. Tig has sailed for a long time and it shows in his deftness, the result of quiet confidence of such experience. Tig is also the oldest on the boat and I would suggest he’s in his early 70’s, but as fit as any. He has clearly led a very interesting life. His parents were both from London, but he was born while they were living in the Sudan. He emigrated from there to Canada when he was 6 and that has been home ever since. He has a PhD in something related to statistical analysis of farm animal genetics, something mainstream like that, and he has traveled extensively. It does mean that when we’ve chatted with the local farmers while visiting their settlements, at least one of us asks intelligent questions. Unfortunately it also means we then get chapter and verse on all things sheep! Tig is a quietly spoken, confident man who asks and listens with care and courtesy. He’s definitely Canadian.

There are, or may be there were, two other crew members who made it over to Stanley from Chile, but one is permanently gone and the other is now back in Stanley seeking medical attention. The first of the two was Steve, a Brit and a very accomplished sailor. When we first arrived at the boat, he disappeared off on a long walk and joined us directly at the dinner table while the rest of us had met up for a quick beer in the bar first. He was an interesting guy and very much the contrarian amongst us. When the issue was raised of Trump’s presidency (one of only two topics the skipper asked us all not to raise – the other being Brexit) and someone amongst us (no, it was not me), but it was an American member of the crew, said Trump was a “****ing Idiot,” Steve suggested he wasn’t – on the basis that he had stood on shaking things up and he was doing just that. He also accepted the argument that what Trump was there to solve for –  wasn’t shaking things up, but making things better – anyway, enough of that argument. The next day, Steve once again went off on his own, but then joined some of the team who went to a Gurkha Band concert in the Anglican Cathedral (something that I decided I would sacrifice so I could do something else!) and then he came back late to join us for dinner. It immediately became apparent that he was in a distressed state and had had maybe a couple of drinks too many. Later that night he stumbled down the stairs on the way to his cabin and hit his head, having to then be helped into his bunk. The next day he and the Skip decided he needed to leave the boat for his and for everyone else’s safety. He did so with good grace. He was going to have to stay on the Island for the rest of the week until the weekend flights came in the following weekend. I reached out to him by email and met him on Wednesday late afternoon for a cup of tea and a chat after class was let up. I really liked this guy, he was an interesting man who had started out his career as a Deck Officer in the Merchant Navy and then raced sailing boats for a rich technocrat before getting another proper job with a large tech company. He was another Yacht Master Ocean and had sailed the Atlantic a couple of times before. He told me he arrived with reservations about the trip and had decided early on he just couldn’t make the trip and hence the drinking. But, he emphasized many times to me that the decision for him to leave was the right one and he accepted it (he had to really).

Then there were six.

So who have we missed out – well that would be James from just North of Boston. James left the boat this morning to fly from a tiny airfield on Carcass Island (when I say tiny – I mean a strip of grass). He went down with a Urinary Infection and after some antibiotics that Edgar gave him, his recovery was too slow and so he has gone to be checked out and receive further treatment. In the not too distant past, he had recovered from some other major medical stuff, which may complicate things and, before he could set off across the Ocean, it was best he got a better diagnosis and treatment. We all hope he’ll be waiting for us when we get back to Stanley – ready for the onward trip. He is another accomplished sailor and also an expert in radar systems and boat design and building – so another useful chap to have around.

So there you have the crew – and while I will no doubt mentioned more about them as the trip develops, it will likely not be of a personal nature. Oh – sorry, there is another guy on board, but not one who will make the ocean passage. To help us acclimate and form a team, we have a Yacht Master Ocean instructor from the UK, Alan. He taught us celestial navigation and guided us through the meteorological piece and electronics navigation and communication updates. He was/is excellent. He is also keeping us on our toes during this passage around the Falklands. Even though we are all experienced and qualified navigators, we aren’t perfect, and when you don’t do it all of the time, you tend to make mistakes. So far, none of us have made any big mistakes and we’ve managed to get us to where we need to in one piece – but we have Alan looking over our shoulders and making sure we do things correctly.

Today we saw a tug towing a barge (on my watch). Alan asked me what the day and night marks should be – and I knew! All those hours spent in Chatham at 6.30am in the morning in STARBUCKS weren’t wasted, apparently! The towing tug wasn’t showing any day markers (but then neither were we – as we were motor sailing, we should have been displaying a motoring cone forward of the mast). Alec told us we wouldn’t need to know this stuff down here – because we likely wouldn’t see another vessel and if we did – they wouldn’t be showing any markers – day or night!

So there we were, early on Tuesday morning, motor sailing off our anchorage and heading through the inner Tamar pass into what would prove to be a labyrinth of waterways that would lead us to our destination for the night – Hope Harbour off West Point Island, about 48 Nautical Miles away. This was a stunning sail. The topography had changed to something more dramatic, a little bit like sailing off the West Coast of Scotland. There were rocky shores, rising to cliffs at times, and then behind that, high rolling hills. Neither on East nor West Falkland can you find a tree. It’s strange, because this is mainly sea level to about 800 meters, but we’re too far south for trees. However, there are a lot of Peat Bogs here in West Falkland, suggesting that in the far distant past, maybe when the Falklands were still off the East Coast of South Africa (yes, that is where they are supposed to have come from) they were densely covered in trees. I should probably start quiet on this, or may be the South African’s will claim ownership of these splendid Islands, ahead of the Argies.

Pebble Sound is a beautiful expanse of open water, but lurking below the surface are rocks and there the area has had limited surveying done. Ernesto manfully piloted us through these waters and out into Byron Sound and from there we rounded into Hope Harbour and headed up to the South East corner to anchor for the night, out of the way of the building swell. These are distant waters, very sparsely populated with only small settlements dotted around. These days, small cruise ships drop in on the Islands and apparently they provide a better living for the settlements then sheep do (even though wool prices and the exchange rate benefits are making sheep farming quite profitable again). The smaller cruise boats (between 100 and 500 passengers) stop in the bays and then ferry their passengers ashore to go and look at the wild life. They are charged per passenger for stopping there. There is also the chance to sell tea, coffee and souvenirs too.

Now, as we wound our way through these beautiful waters, I did my turn on the helm and then retreated downstairs to join Giselle who was about to induct me into the Pelagic Australis Bakers Hall of Fame. Obviously, when on passage and away from port for three weeks (and currently we are already 10 days out from port and not a store within 100 miles), one has to be self sufficient and that means baking our own bread. So I took the challenge to be the first of the crew to bake. I used the recipe from the side of the flour packet and, under Giselle’s expert eye, I mixed and kneaded the dough and then left it to rise on top of the Reflex heater – and sat and watched. Luckily, I got called up on deck for something and had to drag myself away. Giselle called me back down for the unveiling ceremony. I was on tenterhooks to see if this thing had risen. I haven’t baked bread for the past 30 years – and I have no skills in the area of baking. I can do what I have to and I will bake at home if I have to, but generally, Bernadette takes care of all things baked when we entertain. The stakes here were big – no bread to go with the soup for lunch if I failed in my mission. I asked Giselle if she had a loaf maybe she’d baked earlier, but she didn’t. Well, the dough had risen, so I knocked it back, greased the pans and loaded them for their second stage of proofing. Again, the dough rose, my hopes were now better. I loaded them into the oven and set the timer. Every time I went up on deck, I was asked how the bread was. This was important to people and the pressure was on. The timer went off and I descended to take a look – and to be honest,  they looked good, but Giselle suggested turning the loaves in the pans and giving them another 5 minutes. I did so – they browned. I left them resting on the bread board ready for lunch.

When lunch was served, I was back on the helm and therefore everyone else ate and I had to wait for mine. The compliments flooded in about the bread. It was as if I’d discovered kryptonite, not baked bread. By the time I got mine, I was desperate to taste it and so, for the second time in the last ten days, I ate something I never eat – bread and butter with soup! The first exception was to eat an egg sandwich – don’t get me going. I just don’t do egg sandwiches, but there I sat one lunchtime on break from our class on celestial navigation – eating an egg and mayonnaise sandwich – and enjoying it!

In a world of massive innovation (and Edgar explained some of the innovations he is involved in the medical field), my contribution was the baking of bread on a sailing boat traversing shallow waters in West Falkland. This will not make a scientific magazine nor a Nobel prize nomination! And sadly, as far as my family goes, my brother Trevor used to be a master Baker (hence the name Alice and James still use for him – TrevorBread) and he might not have thought so kindly about my creation based on his standards! I don’t care – little victories need to be celebrated and I took the compliments!

The day ended in our anchorage just up from West Point and again it was stunning. I came here with little expectation about the scenery and the journey from Mount Pleasant Airfield into Stanley reinforced my limited expectation. It was Mars-like and barren, but the trip was about sailing and forming a well oiled machine of a crew, and while that’s true (hmm – oiled may be, especially by 8.00pm in the evening), the scenery has actually blown me away and this anchorage, Hope Harbour, was no exception. It seems the drive from Mount Pleasant is both an enigma and an anathema! We anchored, put the boat to bed and then a landing party went ashore for a stroll, returning with a large bucket of wonderful looking mussels.

Once everyone was safely back aboard, we all retreated downstairs to settle in for the night. The next day was billed as a day at leisure, staying where we were, with a walk over the hills to see the Albatross nesting ground. Shortly after we settled in, the Skip let us know that James needed to get back to Stanley and therefore tomorrow would be all about that. No one cared about missing the day of leisure, we just wanted James to get the help he needed and get fit, if possible, for the Ocean passage. The start the following day might be a bit earlier than planned, but it didn’t dull our enthusiasm for a good evening down in the saloon!

Pip pip!

We rode out the gale on Sunday night – with long patches of there being no wind at all and then a crashing sound as the wind ramped quickly up to thirty knots plus, whirling the sea up around us. Regardless of any nighttime disturbance, we needed another early start the next morning to get back up the channel and out into the Atlantic. So, by 6.30 am most of us were mustered in the saloon having breakfast. I was navigating and orchestrating the crew – we called it skippering, but Alec, our real skipper was at hand the entire time to make sure we didn’t screw up anything too seriously. We weighed anchor just before 8.00am, just in time for slack water and we headed out for the 60 Nm. passage. Once we snaked our way up and we popped out of the channel, we were able to get down to some decent sailing. With a reefed-in Main and the Yankee out fully, we zipped along the north shore of East Falkland heading west, managing close to 10 knots at times, 3 knots ahead of the planned speed.

While this was exhilarating, it also created consequences for us. We had two tidal gates to solve for. One leaving Salvador Water – which led to the early start before we would have to fight the incoming flood tide – and then one at the other end of the passage we had to get through the Tamar Pass – another constriction which meant strong currents during peak tidal times. I had figures if we arrived at the Tamar Pass by about 4.00pm and knew that we should be OK to get through to our anchorage on the other side. Arriving too early would mean battling head-on current from the ebbing tide. I also figured that once we rounded Dolphin Head, the western extreme of East Falkland, we would turn to make for the Tamar pass across the channel that divides East and West Falkland (Falkland Sound) and at that point, we would have the wind right on our nose. Of course, we could beat into the wind (tack from side to side), but Pelagic isn’t a great “tacking boat” – in that tacking her is really hard work and after a while it just gets to be a grind. Because she had 3 forestays, you have to furl away whichever head sail you are using and then unfurl it our on the other side – every time you tack – which over time leads to a lot of work and a knackered crew.

My passage plan clearly said – motor sail the last leg if needed. It was needed, but we had to slow our speed down so we didn’t get to Tamar too early, but I figured getting there between 3.00pm and 3.30pm would still be manageable. And so it was. We headed through the pass and then turned hard to starboard and headed up into the anchorage where we were to spend the night. The previous evening we had been joking about dropping the hook in time for G&T’s in the sun (it had been a stunning, sunny, breezy, long day – but just perfect sailing weather). Once we’d dropped the anchor in the Lee of Pebble Island, in the northern part of Pebble Sound, at the top end of West Falkland and made the boat ready for the night, we found the skip down in the saloon making everyone a well earned, and unexpected G&T.

So we sat out on the back of the boat, enjoying our drinks and watching the sun slowly slip down over the stunning hills that surrounded this lonely spot. West Falkland has more dramatic topography than the East and we were about spend the next week sailing through and around it. Our plan was to get as far west as we could, as quickly as we could and then get the benefit of sailing inside and around this stunning scenery – and here we were, almost as far West as we would go – just a little more West the following day. It may not be for everyone here – it is remote – but it would be hard for anyone not to agree that this was beautiful in its simplicity. Of course, most places that look over open water tend to look better (even Queenborough, just inside the Meadway – look at the photos on previous blogs), but sitting here with a G&T in my hand, the sun shining on the horizon, the water glistening and the hills beckoning – it really doesn’t get much better than this. Maybe a good dinner with good people – and that was the plan again for the night!

Pip pip!

We set out Thursday night and Friday across the sound from Stanley. The weather went from a howling gale and rain, to calm and overcast on a rolling basis – switching one out for the other. Based on the weather forecast, it looked like it would be good to leave early on Saturday and head up and around East Falkland to find an anchorage, tucked in between the main land and Little Shag Island. I kid you not, there is a Big Shag Island – as in the birds (minds out of the gutter). 

So Saturday morning came and at 6.30am we weighed anchor, hoisted the main and motor sailed out of Stanley. It felt so good! We quickly became a sailing boat (no engine) and the crew came together to be a proper crew. It might take a good wind to get this boat going, but once she’s going, boy does she zing along and eat up the sea. We were sailing along in 30 knots of wind and seas that might have been thought to be choppy in normal circumstances – but in Pelagic, they rode like calm waters. As we would find out – when the seas get up a little, you still feel the power of the water below you!

We sailed for about 7 hours, arriving in good light at a beautiful natural anchorage on the north side of East Falkland – at the head of Salvador Water (if you want to find it on a map). We dropped the hook (anchor) – a very technical activity on a boat of this size, and then within 15 minutes we were into a dingy and heading to the beach on Big Shag Island. I’ve already owned up previously that I know bugger all about wildlife and plants – yet here I was heading to an island where all I was going to do was look at wildlife and plants. As we rode the dingy in – dolphins followed us and you could pretty much touch them – seriously they would surface about a foot from the dingy’s side and dart away. They are very entertaining and very fast – I think they want stupid humans to lean out and try and grab them, thereby falling into the freezing water to be laughed at by the much smarter mammals! Upon landing on the Island, the most incredible things were the seal pups and parents. We had been warned not to get too close and to never get between parents and pups. We walked carefully around the rocky headland and passed by the most humongous sized seals – like 15 feet long. Surely these must be the parents? Apparently not, they were the immature males. The West Texas Whataburger effect came to mind – surely not on this small Island? As I would find numerous times over the next 24 hours, there is a serene beauty down here in the Falkland Islands – very different between East and West, and while I could make comparison to Scotland and Ireland and New Zealand, there was something unique about this place and I can’t yet place my finger quite on it. The topography would change dramatically over the next several days, but off Shag Island it was undulating, really quite green, but also rocky. It was dramatic in a non enormous way. I think it was the remoteness that struck me. Here we were, over 200 miles from the nearest next land mass, but many more miles to the nearest inhabited place – actually, maybe Rio Grande would be that place – I need to Google it (but not from here where I have no access to Google and won’t for the next 5 weeks, and I may just be a better human being for that!)

The following day, we had figured on a short boating day, taking the boat down the channel into Salvador Water itself – about an hour or so of careful voyage. This was new territory for the boat and for the three permanent crew members who, I haven’t yet mentioned – and I should do, especially as two of the three aren’t coming with us across the Southern Ocean! When I started my last blog I resolved not to talk about the people I was sailing with and then half way through and a few long days sailing with Barclay – and I had to mention him – it was my release and that dragged other people into the thing – so to not mentioned the permanent crew of Pelagic would seem churlish. 

First of all, our current skipper, Alec. He is from Cornwall, but says he’s spent over half his years in South Africa and his accent is a combination of the two – he definitely has a “grudge” and he keeps “hees car een eet.” He is a good guy – probably in his late 30’s, could be younger, but I don’t think so. He has been master of Pelagic Australis and, before that, Little Pelagic (as they say) for the last several years or so, but sailed down here in the high latitudes with Skip Novak (the owner) in various positions over 12 years and he is quietly very confident, very knowledgable and very capable (which is a good thing, don’t you think?) His briefing on the first day was straight forward and to the point. Not a single word was wasted and nothing superfluous was added, including telling us the main safety briefing would be later in the week – “so don’t destroy my boat in the meantime!”

His first mate is Thomas – who looks a bit like Captain Haddock from Tin Tin. He is German, from the very nice Bavarian town of Ulm (which I know quite well). He’s been first mate on this boat for quite some time, like 5 years I think. He is quite a philosophical sort of chap maybe late 30’s also, but who knows because he has a thick black beard covering his face with rounded wire framed glasses perched on top of the beard. He quietly expounds well thought out points of view, rarely extreme in any way, thoughtful and declarative! He knows the boat inside out (and this boat has a lot of mechanical and electrical systems and they need to be understood before we take it across the water) and if you engage him and listen, he is a very good teacher. When I say there are a lot of systems – they aren’t necessarily high tech, but they are still systems. The doors to the two heads do not have locks on them, so there is a system to avoid the embarrassment of someone opening the door while one is attending to matters of state – knock first. I said not everything was high tech. Between the heating, the gen set, the very large Cummins diesel engine, the day tank, the lock on the lifting keel, the very heavy duty winless (lowers and raises the anchor), the battery monitoring system, the switch over between regular and power driven steering (one is on deck outside, the other in the pilot house inside, one is good for sailing and one isn’t – guess which one isn’t? Yes – inside the pilot house – swines!)

The sails and running rigging are a thing of beauty with more lines than the London Underground – running back stays, three forestays each with a furling line and two sheets, a four reef main with 7 lines and a boom that is large enough to climb on and crawl along when the sail is coming down and being flaked. There is a coffee grinder (a two person pedestal winch – not really for grinding coffee) to grind up the main or a reefing line.  So – a lot of things to master if we’re to be able to adequately crew this thing and sail her properly.

The third member of the team is Alec’s South African wife, Giselle. I believe she and Alec worked the Little Pelagic (53 ft – not so little and then worked this one for a number of years). She is equally qualified on the boat systems and on making Pelagic sail (and secretly, I may be more afraid of her – she doesn’t take any crap when she’s running the deck!) She also acts as our wildlife guide and she is a fully qualified dive instructor – like I’m going to do that – underwater! She also is a first class cook, but then all three of them can cook really well. So far, we have divvied the cooking between us and we’ve eaten some pretty damned good meals.

It must be hard living in the confined space of a boat for an extended time, even if this one has more space than most sail boats. This is their life. They are on her for more than six months of the year. And then, a bunch of guys arrive who want to sail your baby and they are going to invade your privacy. This has to be quite difficult. When we sailed around Great Britain, we would settle into a pattern with the crew by the end of the week. Everyone knew the system and the way of working. Then – a new bunch would arrive on the Saturday and our space, the space we had become so comfortable in, would be infested and things would become uncomfortable and sometimes annoying! The biggest part of this boat’s work (and therefore her crew’s) is carrying paid passengers down to South Georgia and to the Antarctic Peninsula. South Georgia is an Island in the South Atlantic, not the State in the US – it is the place where Shackleton eventually sailed to from Antarctica when his expedition became marooned – and he sailed it in an small open boat in freezing, rough seas – with just a sextant to navigate by, then he climbed a hither too unclimbed mountain without equipment and eventually reached a Whaling Station to raise help to go back and rescue his crew – which he then did – and so, I would suggest he was a hill climber in life.

Generally, the passengers who charter Pelagic either want to climb something or walk on an ice field or film wildlife in very cold, remote places  (the BBC have certainly chartered this boat in the past). Pelagic Australis used to also take charters around Cape Horn, but apparently the Chilean Government have put pay to that and decreed that all boats doing that trip out of Porto Williams need to be owned and skippered by Chilean nationals – not an unfair thing maybe, but it’s a job protection scheme for the large Chilean Navy, for when their deck officers retire. Incidentally, these ex-naval officers have no interest in this kind of work, so instead, the boats going out Porto Williams theses days tend to be unfit, unsafe and mainly unprofessional boats, but of Chilean ownership and management. I’ve heard this is a now a dodgy business to be involved in or to buy from – maybe it’s not unlike buying a car in Essex – where I’m sure you have to be from Essex to sell cars and on the surface the vehicles might look good, but in reality. …… know what I mean!

Any way – now you know a little about the permanent crew – and I’m sure you’ll know more if you keep reading! Back to Sunday and our day. In the morning, a few of us took a dingy ride over to the main land and walked a little inland and then back around so we could come up on a colony of Gettu Penguins (is colony the right word – let me check Google…..apparently yes – who knew – not me, but maybe Google, which I don’t have!) They were small penguins and very amusing. Some were practicing building nests – which involved bringing stones – individually – from the shore about 100 yards away and then meticulously collecting small pieces of plant and other Flora and the like to bed down on top of the stones. They were only PRACTICING for the next season! Can you imagine humans doing that – practicing building houses – OK, maybe there are certain companies in the house building business who roughly approximate to practicing when they build, as in they haven’t necessarily got it right yet, but they charge for their output regardlessly. The penguins eyed us up with a certain caution, but because this wasn’t the breeding or rearing season – they didn’t care about us. Once again, I was in awe of the surroundings. We had stalked up and around a little creek and back to the penguins, and it reminded me of an area up on the North East Coast when you get behind the Dunes (Beadnel), – but more unique than that – there are no penguins in Northumberland. It was just stunning in its simple beauty. I remember as a kid, camping up on the Northumberland coast and we kids would be shooed out of the tents very early in the morning, occasionally accompanied by Dad, but usually not and we would scout this area behind the dunes, in search for mushrooms. We rarely found any and when we did, we had no idea if they were toadstools or mushrooms. Over the years, when I thought about it, I realized that what seemed like a treat from Mam and Dad, letting us sneak off early to explore was in fact an opportunity for some peace and quiet (and they already had eight kids).

We spent the early afternoon navigating carefully through the channel up into Salvador Water and, once we’d dropped the hook in a strengthening wind, we again headed to the shore, this time it visit a settlement – which was a group of a few houses, and a farm with out-buildings. It was a damp business getting on to dry land, but worth it. Where we landed, there was an old stone jetty and a deserted boat house, harking back to the days when getting from here to Stanley would have been a ridiculously long horse ride (there was a plaque up by a dirt road telling us that the road was only built in the early 1990’s) or it would be a boat ride. The first building and some half a mile from the main buildings, was the shearing shed. It was easy to see how the sheep are fed in one side and out the other. There were raised air vents in the corrugated roof and an old generator stood to one side – this was still clearly in use. No doubt at one time, the fleece would have been bundled and taken directly down to the jetty to be transported to Stanley and onwards to the U.K. Midway between where we landed and the main settlement, set off to the side of the road, there were two small graveyards. Taking a closer look, one had three graves in it, the most recent was dated 1893. I would guess that over time, things changed and the dying or dead would be taken back to Stanley and eventually buried in the Main Island cemetery. Of course, no one will know exactly where they were buried, try asking. The other graveyard had no head stones, just an outline of the grave in small rocks, but there were fresh flowers on both the graves. One was normal grave size, while the other was clearly for an infant or child, and again it had relatively fresh flowers. This suggested known relatives of the current farmer. We later met the farmer and land owner, Nick, but I couldn’t ask him about it – it seemed way too personal. These two sets of graves were away from the main settlement and on a bleak Sunday afternoon they seemed isolated and lonely places to be (thinking about it – I guess all graves are pretty lonely places to be). This settlement was into its 5th generation, so it could easily have dated back to pre 1893. The current farmer has been farming it since the early 1980s, when he took it over from his father. In speaking to him (and we concluded he was pleased to have someone to talk to), he told up they had 8,000 (yes, eight thousand) head of sheep on 5,000 hectares and they had specially bred a strain of sheep that would thrive in this barren area and produce high quality wool. Clearly sheep farming is a technical business and the Archers fully misrepresent what has to be done in the world of sheep farming (for those in places other then the U.K. – the Archers is a daily radio programme – a tale of everyday country folk). This guy has spent time in both New Zealand and Bradford in the U.K., learning his trade. He drove an old Land Rover, wore shredded blue overalls covering a spectacular green sweater with a high collar that would have cost a fortune anywhere else. He spoke with a slightly West Country English accent. He was educated, informed and generally thought we needed to know far more about sheep farming than we really did, but it was very informative. As we turned to heard back to the dingy and out to the boat, the heavens darkened, the wind picked up even more and the rain started. By the time we got back to the boat we were drenched – but this is normal on a sailing boat.

We repositioned the boat a couple of miles to the other side of the large bay, tucked in on the lee side of a small hill, ready for the gale that was already building. We then tucked ourselves up below deck and dined on meat balls in a rich marinara sauce served with pasta and a salad. Just the sort of food on a night like this and a great hit, washed down with some distinctive red (from a box!) Our Sunday had been filled with new discovery and it was ending with a great dinner with good people, safe and protected. I think I shared in a post from the last sail – how I like Sunday nights – it’s a glorious feeling I get when the evening draws in, folks turn their lights on to greet the dark, winding themselves down from the weekend and up for Monday and the return to the work week – and I’m not! I really like it when the night draws in, dark and blustery and I just don’t need to worry – fire on, cup of tea in hand (absolutely no fire on a boat). So this Sunday night we tucked ourselves up down in the salon (saloon) on Pelagic Australis and waited without anticipation for the gale to arrive.

Pip pip!

PS. A message for Jamesie. The sunglasses you took such delight in poking fun at are working just brilliantly – not a tear it be experienced – so there!

So fast forward now – because you can guess/know I made it safely to the Falklands on the Saturday flight – as planned. We joined the boat and started the process of settling in, getting familiar with one an other. I’ll come back with some insights into my fellow crew members, but they all seem like a good group – a really good group. We started bonding in Punta Arenas airport when they disembarked to wait for the onward leg of their flight and I was waiting around ready to join them on that much haunted Punta to Mount Pleasant flight. Once on the Island, we solidified things over a pre-dinner drink in one of the two pubs just up the street from the Public Dock where the Pelagius Australis was moored (note was – not anymore – read on).

Our hosts on board, skipper Alec and his wife Giselle, were cooking dinner for us on our first night, thus freeing us all to go and take a quick pint. The Globe – the nearest of the two pubs was like something from the UK 30 years ago. Juke box, gaming machine, bright beer, dirty. The locals were welcoming and after the initial jokes from the Barman, we settled into just being customers. We returned to the boat for the 7.00pm dinner time to be greeted with appetizers, beer and wine. I will try and send some photos of the boat at some stage, when the satellite connection is feeling a little more energetic, but for now I’ll describe it to you.

Unlike any boat I’ve sailed on, this one is a monster at 74 feet in length and almost 20 feet at the beam. It can sleep 12 people, more if the pilot berth in the pilot house is used and the bunks are dropped in the skipper’s cabin. We will only be 8 for the Atlantic crossing, so it should be comfortable (hmm!). The main salon has a huge table with a large elongated semi-circular banquette around three sides and then fixed stools on the final side. There is a compact, well equipped galley on the port side and a communications suite on the starboard side (two desks facing each other with the communications equipment etc around you). The ceiling is low and covered with wooden battens. There is a reflex heating system – stainless steel with a hot water tank and a rounded furnace upon which you can place a kettle or pan to heat and there is a proper stove in the galley. This means she (the boat) is warm and cozy as well as relatively spacious for a boat. Sitting around this table for dinner on the first night, drinking wine, chatting and getting to know each other was much fun. By listening to everyone’s contribution and watching the body language, it was possible to start to understand the nature of each of my fellow crew members even if only superficially. Of course, all sailors drone on and share stories, and we were all sailors to whatever extent we wanted to be. We did a bit of droning that first night! The Sunday was going to be an “at leisure” day – so everyone would do their own thing until dinner time came round again, when we would reconnect. In actual fact, we were all back on-board around 4.30pm and so the skipper pulled out the beer and wine and snacks and we started the conversations again. I’d used the day to acclimate and get in touch with home. I brought a satellite phone with me which allows me to send texts and e mails (plain text) and also call home – but sparingly and only short calls. It was a good to hear Bernadette and Alice’s voices – I couldn’t get hold of James. I find homesickness to be at its worst in the first few days and in the last few. In between has ups and downs.

Prior to leaving Dallas, my brother Gerard had e-mailed me to let me know that a friend of our parents, Monsignor Spraggon, someone from the West End of Newcastle and a member of the legendary Catholic Parish of St Michael’s, had in fact been the parish priest out here when the Islands had been invaded in 1982. He had died here on the island in 1985 and was buried out here. His nephew (I believe) was a colleague of my sister-in law, Jo. Of course, going to Mass down here in the Falklands, was a must. Getting to go to church in such a remote and historically referenced place had to be a unique experience, I just didn’t know how unique though. I had walked along the front on the Saturday afternoon to locate the church in anticipation of my Sunday visit. En route, I was passed by an army padre – obvious because of his green knitted sweater and dog collar. I stopped him and asked where the Catholic church was.

“Well, strictly speaking, I’m Anglican,” was his first response.

I wasn’t asking him to anoint me with the Last Rites (yes, I know its called something else now – but I can’t spell Extreme Unction) – I was just asking for directions. He did give me directions and I was able to confirm that Mass was at 10.00am the next morning.

Sunday morning dawned and I took the short walk to the church. When I walked in at 9.50am, there was nobody yet in the body of the church, but there was a chap on the altar. I approached him gingerly. He was a red faced man, possibly in his late 40’s, depending on how hard life had been. He was wielding a blow torch trying to light charcoal. He was wearing jeans and an old grey shirt. I’d Googled the church before leaving Dallas and found out the name of the priest and also his brief history. I approached him and introduced myself and asked if he was, in fact, the Parish Priest. He was. Unbeknownst to me, he was Fr. John and not Fr. Alan who I expected, per the church’s web page. Fr. Alan, as I would find out, was now the Abbot for the order and was Fr. John’s boss (presumably somewhere back on the mainland). Before he’d identified himself as Fr. John and not Fr. Alan, I had mentioned that my niece, Sonya, had been at the same college as him in South London, at approximately the same time. Now, on the basis that neither of us knew that I was talking to the wrong person, he immediately claimed to have never been to college in London and then rattled off his complete educational history, starting with prep school and finishing with a college at Oxford. He was quite defensive and I was starting to think maybe mentioning my niece’s name might have brought back sad memories and on the basis that she is now married to Stephen, maybe she had broken his heart and he took up his priestly vows and asked to be sent to the Falklands and away from the heartbreak. Then, here I was, a stranger come to stir the emotional unrest that he been escaping from for the last 20 years.

Or not.

A spark must have ignited at that point because that’s when he explained there must be a mix up here and I was thinking of Fr Alan – who had gone to college in South London and was no longer here. Now we seemed to be somewhat on level ground (although I can’t warrant that he isn’t an undercover Fr. Alan), I pushed the misunderstanding aside and explained my mission – that I was visiting the Island and I told him about Monsignor Spraggon and his connection to my family. He acknowledged the connection, but told me that the Monsignor had left the Island before he died in 1985. This was totally at odds to the story relayed to me by Gerard, obtained from Eddie, the Monsignor’s nephew. I told him that and explained the nephew had made the journey down from the UK to go to the funeral.

“He can’t have,” was his reply.

Was there a further cover up here, more lies and deceit? Was this to be the making of Broadchurch 4?

“Let me just check with one of the older parishioners.”

The church was starting to fill a little. “Jennifer – Monsignor Spraggon left the Island before he died – didn’t he?”

“Oh no Father, he died here on the Island.”

“Oh – I didn’t know that.” That was stating the obvious. “So he’s buried here?”

“Oh yes, he is.”

“In the cemetery?”

Now, that seemed like another obvious question, but this was the Falkland Islands and who was I to say that there weren’t local variances to usual practice. One thing became clear – none of the parishioners who were around at the time the Monsignor died, could remember exactly where in the cemetery he was buried. After Mass, I walked along to the other end of Stanley to where the cemetery was where I searched for an hour and couldn’t find the grave. I looked amongst the graves dated 1985. But nothing. The priest had mentioned to look in a chained off area about halfway up the hill on the right. I couldn’t find that either. I was thwarted. Fr. John had rushed after me as I left the church to give me some postcards celebrating the Monsignor’s life. That was kind of him. That was looking like all I could take back with me.

Mass was interesting! First of all, it was simultaneously broadcast over the Island and Military radio stations and so the priest spoke like he had a massive audience, which he might have had, but in fact there were only about 30 of us in the church. Next, the music source was a pre-programmed boom box. As usual, one referenced the hymns from numbers up on a board hung at the front. When Fr. John climbed the altar, he turned and barked at a lady sitting with a remote control in her hand to “click it now, now.” She bowed several times to him and then clicked. The music started and we were clearly going to sing “The Churches on Foundation ……” However, when I turned to the hymn suggested by the number on the board  …….we were going to sing something very different. But – we’re in the Falklands and the mis-match of tune and words wasn’t going to defeat these hardy folks – the words written in the hymnal were written for much longer lines of music. The result was a group of people trying to fit 12 words into music written for 5. Some managed it. I decided to kneel before I was escorted out for laughing. Once the hymn as over, Fr John leapt down off the altar, stuck a 3 in front of the first hymn number and announced we would sing the hymn again, but with the right words. It didn’t go un-noticed that he lashed the poor lady in the front with his expression as he made the adjustment. In fairness, he did later acknowledge that he had made the mistake with the numbers. The Mass was completely sung in plain chant – and we had hard copies of the music and the soundtrack was beautifully sung on the boombox. Whether it was in singing the Mass, or the hymns – I didn’t hear Fr John sing a single note – and I was in the third bench from the front. When it came to the sermon, he read it verbatim from his typed notes. I suspected this was not the first time he had read this sermon. I like a good sermon, one that challenges you and makes you either doubt your personal contribution to your humanity, or realize the fires of hell are awaiting, or one where you just plain doubt the sanity of the priest. This did none of those. It simply explained we had had heard the word of God through the three readings and then went on to paraphrase them. There was no contextualizing. There were no ‘ah ha’ moments. There were no emotions. I felt un-moved and un-associated. I’m not necessarily blaming Fr John. Maybe this was how Fr Alan wanted things done across his religious order and, of course, he might have been listening to this on live radio, in which case Fr John was already banjaxed for the cock up on the music front. There was a Fr Ted moment a little later (for those of you who have ever seen Fr Ted and if you haven’t, you should). This obliging lady who had initially been empowered to click the music, but who was stripped of that duty after the initial problem, approached the altar during the offertory and offered Fr John something. He refused it. She offered it again. He refused it again. This cycle went on for quite some time…

“You’ll have a cup of tea father, so you will,” rang in my mind.  “Ah – so you will!”

Later on, on Sunday, I visited the Islands museum (which I thought was excellent) and in talking to one of the ladies looking after the book store, I mentioned Monsignor Spraggon to her and she told me that he’d negotiated with the Argentinians to get her brother released, who had been arrested and taken away at some point during the conflict. No doubt this had been terrifying for the family as there were no official lines of communication with the enemy. She said she’d always thought her brother would have been killed, had it not been for the Monsignor. “He was a very good man, very good.”

I suspect this probably wasn’t an isolated example of the work done by this simple man from the West End of Newcastle.

The rest of the week was made up of morning and afternoon sessions up in the Chamber of Commerce meeting room, learning all about Celestial Navigation (trigonometry meets spherical geometry meets buzz mumbo meets precise inaccuracy) which turned out to be quite a lot of fun. We also covered updates to modern electronic navigation and safety for long passages (don’t make them). The treat on the Thursday was to visit Shorty’s Diner for lunch – next door to the meeting room. Evidently this is an institution. I had expected this to be a real greasy spoon of a place and not necessarily somewhere to showcase Great British cuisine to the International Brady gang I was now part of. It wasn’t a greasy spoon. It was spotlessly clean. The menu was broad – but basically all fried (even the salad had a fried element) and the folks working there were brutally friendly – brutally. We left feeling warm and cuddly about this experience.

Over the course of the week, we had experienced very cool dry weather, which had started to change late Wednesday as a depression started to move through. On the Thursday, as we walked to our meeting room, we all noted that the temperature had risen numerous degrees to become quite warm. By lunch time the temperature had dropped and the wind had veered to the North East (from the West) and the temp had dropped significantly. As we walked back down the hill to the boat, we could see the waves sweeping across the inlet and, once we arrived back at the boat, we saw how they were pushing this very big boat on to the very nice, but undersized pontoon. We needed to get onboard and off the pontoon ASAP. So we did and motored over to the other side of the inlet and in 45 knots of wind, we dropped the anchor and rode out the night there. The boat sat solidly in winds that would have made life intolerable on any boat any one of had previously sailed on, but now Pelagic Australis just absorbed them like it was a summer breeze. This all happened really quite quickly, but one thing was for sure, now that we were off the jetty, we weren’t gong back for at least 12 days. Our sailing adventure had certainly started, a little prematurely, robbing us of our last minute shopping and a trip back to the Globe for a final snifter, but no one cared. It felt good to be finally away from the land. While we had all helped get her off the pontoon, it was clear our enthusiasm needed to be tempered by learning how to work such a large, heavy boat. While general principles would be useful, there was a Pelagic way of doing things, and surprisingly, they weren’t the same as previous ways I’d experienced (the same for the others too). I’d been through this sort of thing before when I joined the team at Elite in Chatham at the start of the jaunt around Great Britain, where simply tying the boat up to the dock the US Sailing way was completely frowned upon and I had to reinvent myself, or risk being ostracized as someone who couldn’t even tie a “bloody boat to the dock.”

We’ll see how this develops, but we have good teachers and we are all willing learners and, most importantly, no one is around to see us stumble along the way!

We’re off!

Pip pip!

The flight down from Buenos Aires was pretty uneventful. We were in darkness almost the entire way and most people slept. I listened to music and reflected. I usually enter a city with a song in my head and when I entered Buenos Aires, I should have had something from Evita playing on my internal sound track – Hello Buenos Aires or something. There was nothing. I needed to wake up and start the music. When I travel, I intentionally play music in my head – as it helps me remember so much more about where I’ve been or what I’ve done. I was now listening to a track James gave me called “Are I here” by Helado Negro. This would now anchor my sound track, followed by a bunch of other tracks on a mix I’d put together for dinner the previous Saturday. We’d gotten together with a bunch of friends and called it the last supper (Bernadette didn’t call it that – she thought it was a terrible name).

The Argentinians are interesting people (no generalization here). I would describe them as not so easy going as other Latin Americans – more deliberate – a little dour even, but I do like them (of course probably not all of them, but certainly the ones I have worked with or met). On the subject of their deliberateness. When I was getting onto the flight, I’d watched a woman try to put a guitar into the overhead locker. I will assume she was Argentinian. It wasn’t a big guitar, but it wasn’t a very big locker, and there were already a couple of bags in there. She spent fully 5 minutes trying to fit this instrument in, turning it around and around and trying it every which way. She was completely spatially unaware. She would step into the aisle try again, then step back to let the line move up the plane. Everyone who watched her seemed to nod in tentative approval of the effort being made. She was persistent. I couldn’t help but wonder what the hell she was thinking might magically happen to eventually get this all to work. In the end, a flight attendant came by and simply placed the guitar in the EMPTY locker on the other side of the aisle. Seriously! It kept me amused off and on for the 3 hours we were flying – just thinking about what wasn’t going through her head.

The Taxi driver in Rio Grande seemed terribly noncommittal when I asked him to take me to the “Boos Terminale” (actually they just say Bus terminal). I’d shown him the location written on a card and the name of the Bus Company. Of course the consequences for him not getting to the right place were infinitely less for him than for me – so why should he sweat this one. As I mentioned, there were two addresses given online for the location and, obviously, I wanted the right one, first time – because walking from one to the other with my sailing bag on my back was going to be painful – and I certainly didn’t want to be stood in one while the bus departed from the other – looking like a sad bastard.

My fate now lay in the hands of a taxi driver with whom I had no common language – or maybe anything else. In theory we were 6 minutes away and the bus wasn’t due to leave for almost 100 minutes. I now running well ahead of plan. The Main Street of Rio Grande is called “Islas Malvinas” – The Falkland Islands. This was evidence of the still held Argentinian claim to ownership of the Islands, which lie about 280 miles off Argentina’s coast and have been part of the UK since 1823 when the Spanish pulled out and the Brits moved in. At no point until the late 1940’s/early 1950’s did Argentina lay claim to the Islands. The basis of their claim? Proximity! Uruguay – watch out – you’re next. The terrible war that was waged for 72 days back in 1982 is still a source of national outrage in Argentina and clearly here in Tierra del Fuego – a lightening rod for local passion and emotion. I’m not surprised, though. I have friends who fought on the Argentinian side and they told me they only had summer fatigues (and when they invaded – they were in late Autumn heading into winter). Their rifles didn’t shoot straight and they had no food. Meanwhile, their generals spent a fortune on high tech weapons. There is a monument to the war at the end of the main street in Rio Grande where it meets the sea – I kept my UK Passport well concealed!

Within the 6 minute predicted journey time, we pulled up in something approximating to a desolate garage forecourt, but with an office with bus company logos and signs on it. I alighted from my taxi and paid the driver together with a handsome tip (this throwing him off the scent of me being a Brit). On the door of the office was a hand written sign announcing something about the Sud-Bus. This was the company from Chile who operated my bus. Now then – time for further angst. Did it announce that this was the official stop for the bus, or did announce something about it being the wrong location. I had no way of telling, but I took a photo and I was about to text it up to Boston to Alice for translation and assurance, when I noticed a kiosk on the other side of the door with another Sud-Bus sign on it. Two signs means business and certainty – doesn’t it? Clearly this was the right place – wasn’t it? I rested my pack on the ground outside and sat down on the concrete pavement, huddled up (it was cold and windy) and wondered why I hadn’t stopped to buy some vitals before I left Buenos Aires. My ticket promised drinks and snack on the bus, but I had been up for nearly 6 hours now and all I’d had was a cup of cold coffee and a small bag of mixed nut (no ‘s’ – singular) on the plane. Like an oasis appearing before my eyes, I started to make out people moving in the shop across the street. There was an old, closed, now derelict coffee shop along one side to the bus station, and everything else about us seemed either closed or of little use (like a tyre fitting place, a service station, and a kiosk bank). Not only was there life across the street, but I could see white coats and there was the distinct appearance now of bread sitting on a shelf in the window. I ventured forth to take a better look.

Upon close inspection, this was indeed a bakery, a fully functioning bakery. I entered and bought hot coffee (and it was hot) and a couple of empanadas. Sitting on the inside  window ledge of the shop – I had a most decent breakfast and even managed to buy a box of cereal bars for the onward journey, incase the bus snack turned out to be lacking. I was going to be traveling for eight hours. While I was there, not another soul entered the shop, yet this was a hive of activity and very well organized, spotlessly clean, but empty. I walked over the road back to the bus station just in time to meet a small minibus pulling in – from Ushuaia in Southern Tierra del Fuego. It’s the Argentinean port from where boats leave or arrive after sailing around Cape Horn. It was about a three hour drive south of where I was. The Chilean port of departure/arrival is called Porto Williams – much, much smaller. This small bus threw a couple and their bags out onto the pavement and sped off. I caught their American accent as I walked by. This time, I entered inside the station office and found a place to stand by the window so I could see the bus arrive. The recently arrived American couple came in and stood next to me, so I struck up a conversation. They were from Wyoming, retired and they were roving about Southern Chile and Argentina for a few weeks, just experiencing life. They were also getting the same bus as me. Further proof I was in the right place – or at least I wouldn’t be the only one stranded in the wrong bus station. The thing is – buses are how everyone travels in the more remote parts of Chile or Argentina – what I was doing wasn’t unusual at all.

A rather officious looking lady entered the building, opened the door to the kiosk with the Sud-Bus hand written logo on it and announced something loudly to the 20 or so folks standing around (there were two other kiosks, both manned and both advertising various bus companies). Her final word was something approximating to immigration. I twigged and walked up to the office.

“Do you speak English?”

“No.”

“Sud Bus – Punts Arenas?”

“Si,” was all she said and then shoved an immigration form across the counter. I reciprocated with my internet purchased, printed out ticket. She tore a small strip of unprinted paper off the bottom and stapled it further up my ticket. Interesting. She took my passport and checked the details against those I’d entered on the internet. They didn’t match. I had given my US Passport details online when I’d purchased the ticket, but then entered the country on my UK passport when the immigration official in Buenos Aires told me there would be no cost on one and $160 on the other – “you might as well,” he said. That meant I had to exit the country on the same passport. Argentina is fully automated and there are no forms to fill in – they enter you into their system and like many countries, take your photo and your thumb print. The form I had just been given was for Chile. I took back my UK passport and offered her my US. She looked at me for a full 10 seconds, whimpered and threw the passport back. I had no idea whether I was in trouble, or whether she was just being who she was, but I retreated quickly and hid behind my follow Americans! A passport misalignment wasn’t going to stop me hitting my objective.

The bus pulled into the station 40 minutes before departure time and it was impressive – the proper deal. Our bags were taken and stored and a receipt given. We were ushered on to the bus to find out seats and have our details checked by one of the two Sud-Bus officials (smartly dressed in uniform and fleece jacket). My chosen seat was an aisle seat – but next to the seat I was supposed to occupy – fully ensconced, was a larger lady who had already spread out. Let’s call her Petunia – after the cartoon lady from a public service announcement when I was young. Petunia had placed her coat over the seat back in front of her – raised the armrest that was the demilitarized zone between her seat and mine and she had placed her carry on bag firmly in my seat and she was unloading supplies and the like. Her face was painted Trump orange and her finger nails painted to match. I wasn’t winning this one, so I conceded defeat and went in search of an alternative seat. At first I tried the seats immediately behind – but they were Chip and Nancy’s seats (my new American cousins). I tried the one behind those, but after taking up occupancy, a couple of guys came and claimed them (Japanese I thought). However, the seat on the other side of the aisle from Chip and Nancy looked unclaimed and so I bagged it. At precisely 10.30 – the bus left the station and I allowed myself a little yelp – it seemed like I would make Punta Arenas and be on the flight to the Falklands the next morning.

The notion of spending eight hours on a bus would normally be daunting. However, set in the context of the overall journey it seemed to be just a means to an end and not terribly daunting, and in reality, it was going to be absolutely fine. The seats were very comfortable and there was more legroom than the majority of domestic airline flights (including on the three hour flight I’d just been on). Within minutes of the bus moving, one of our drivers (the boss I think) came by and took a coffee or tea order. I can stretch my Spanish to order coffee with hot milk and so I did – I learned how to ask for hot milk when we took Alice, as a baby, to the Canary Islands for a much needed break (for us, not her – she was only 8 months old) and each evening I would go to the bar and get some hot milk to make up her feed with. Memories! Our driver made his rounds with the tea and coffee and the much anticipated snack, which was a very dense cup cake wrapped in cling film. I accepted it and soon understood that this should be eaten in small bites and it could likely take me through the next 6 weeks with careful planning. It tasted delicious – but it was going to be hard work to get through it.

Chip and Nancy were excellent companions and we idly talked in between reading and listening to music. The bus drove for two hours north up the coast and then into the countryside, which was somewhat barren and increasingly undulating – right into the middle of nowhere. We then spent the thick end of an hour and a half getting through Argentinian and Chilean immigration. First, we all had to get off, go into the shed belonging to the Argentinian immigration people – this was definitely frontier territory – to complete formalities! The Chilean customs and immigration people are about 20 minutes North of the Argentinean. I have no idea what lies in between, or which country it belongs to – but I’ll bet the Argies have laid claim to it! So, after the Argentinian shed – back on the bus and on to a dirt track for a few miles and off again into a real shack of a place to be allowed to enter Chile. Our bags were unloaded and scanned in an other shack and then we re-boarded and drove for another two hours, mostly over unpaved roads – finally stopping shortly after we finally got back onto a concrete road. Here, the road dipped down to meet the Straits of Magellan and a working ferry was there to meet us. Again we all alighted, this time walking down a wide concrete ramp and onto the ferry. Our bus followed us and within 10 minutes we were sailing over the water. It was very windy and to one side we had dark grey storm clouds and on the other sunshine. It was quite a surreal, yet beautiful scene – Tierra del Fuego meets Patagonia. This was the tip of South America. I had been in Dallas just 36 hours ago.

Thirty minutes after stepping on the ferry we were off and back on the bus (same bus – hadn’t expected that) and within ninety minutes we were entering Punta Arenas. The eight hours had passed with ease and with interest. I was now overcome with hope – as we passed the Punta Arenas airport – knowing that I would be back there the following morning to catch my flight over to The Falklands. Punta Arenas bus station was a hub of activity, but then Punta Arenas seemed like a buzzing major town, set right beside the Magellan with easy access out into the South Atlantic. Significantly, my hotel was a mere 5 minute walk away, but the wind was howling and the rain had started. I arrived into reception of this high end place a little wet and wind blown, but extremely happy. The receptionist didn’t join in my delight and firmly brought me down to earth with a discussion about the rate I had bagged on-line. “I don’t think this is the right rate,” she announced.

“Really?” I said, “why not?”

“This is special rate for certain times and certain people.”

I tried to be funny, always a fatal error when dealing in a foreign tongue. “Well I’m certain this is the time and I’m equally certain I am the person.” Silence. Air blown between lips. Fingers tapped across the keys. Looks exchanged with a colleague. Head shaking from side to side. I gently passed my confirmation across the desk. She ever so gently ignored it. I pushed it a little further. She glanced at it. I presented my credit card. She ignored it and tapped away. Someone was getting a long email. One of us had to break. I was tired and while elated at making my destination, all I wanted was a cold beers and access to the internet to call Bernadette, Alice and James to confirm my victory. Now, there was an officious hotel clerk between me and the goal.

“Is that a bar behind you?”

“Yes it is – and a very good one.”

“Excellent – I’m going through there and when you’re finished recalculating things, I’ll be in there for you to find me.”

I could hear her brain working on saying something, but I wasn’t going to negotiate. I left her and deposited myself at a table in the really quite splendid bar – ordered a very cold local beer, and received it together with free nuts (this time with an S – plural). I made my phone calls. I also picked up a message from one of the group up in Santiago suggesting we all meet up that evening in the bar at the Holiday Inn at Santiago Airport – for a beer – at 7.00. I looked at my watch – 6.40. I replied to say “beat you by 20 mins – in Punta Arenas awaiting tomorrow’s flight.” I got a slew of replies congratulating me on making it. I felt relaxed, but tired. Then  – in came the clerk from reception and I was girding my loins for the showdown when she presented me with my key cards and requested my credit card. I didn’t ask what the rate was and she didn’t volunteer it. The transaction was done. I could now set upon the serious work of finding a local venue for dinner. All was good with the world and the nonsense of a plan I’d hatched less than three days ago had been executed and everyone had lived up to their word. Alice had been a star (we are so alike)! Planes, buses taxis and a ferry had worked. For a moment – the thought of sailing the Atlantic seemed like it might be an easier task after this. I knew I might come to live that down – and we will see. But for then, I was contented – no – very contented and ready for dinner, a sleep and an onward flight.

Pip pip

PS. The room rate was exactly the one Hotels.com had confirmed to me. Just because – I googled the hotel later that evening and checked the rate – it was exactly the rate that Hotels.com had quoted. Certain people and certain times indeed. 

My experience of American Airlines is generally pretty good. Like all major companies, they have rogue operators who seem to survive. However, in my experience, flying their Latin American routes is a massively variable and often charmless experience, and so it was on my flight down to Argentina last Wednesday evening. First of all, I didn’t want to go to Buenos Aires and second, I was leaving home a full night earlier than I wanted to. Bernadette and I had taken James to Love Field to catch his flight back to San Fran, returned home and after a very quick change of clothes, I called an Uber and within a few short minutes I was away for 6 to 9 weeks, depending on who you were.

For Bootsie, it was 9 weeks and my heart broke as I said good bye to her. She is 14 and while she’s in decent condition, Bernadette had pointed out to me that there was no certainty that she would still be with us when we eventually got back – 9 weeks hence. I think the way this departure suddenly descended on us – was a bit of a shock. We’d know it was going to happen for months and months, but then the time spent on the phone to airlines in the final few days, the loss of one complete day now given up to travel, and losing the time together at the conference – all of this meant the departure moment just seemed massively premature. Nevertheless, I headed off in the back of the Uber to a waving Bernadette and a nonplussed Boots, who doesn’t like bags around the place – it usually means some time for her in enforced confinement and a loss of treats and company. In this case she was going to be fine – until next week when Bernadette was leaving to fly to the UK!

Back to the Buenos Aires flight! The crew were pretty surly and definitely not in the mood for niceness. Perfunctory is the furthest I could stretch. I didn’t really care – I was more self obsessed with a combination of what I was leaving behind and what I had in front of me. I wasn’t thinking of the sail – I was thinking of the journey to get me to the sail!

Landing in a Southern American city is always……. interesting! Buenos Aires had been the source of numerous interesting arrivals in my past. When Bernadette and I landed there about 5 years ago – we’d spent 90 minutes arguing to get our luggage which was about 20 yards away and in full view. Clearly a “tip” was needed. We then spent nearly an hour waiting in a scrum to get past the baggage scanner and out to the street to find a taxi. This time was a pleasant disappointment! The lines were long and orderly. The immigration official was polite and helpful. The baggage scan took a while, but no scrum. I exited to the street 45 minutes after landing and a little confused as to whether I was really in South America. I was – the pavement outside confirmed it! The scrum had just repositioned!

I’d booked the hotel through one of the usual online booking sites. Alice had rang the place for me to ask about transportation and I’d been told to call them once I was through customs and they would pick me up within 10 minutes. It assumed I would have a working phone. I did. I called. They came (not quite 10 normal minutes, but within 10 Latin American minutes!) and I was transported to my accommodation. It was still only 8.00am local time. Buenos Aires’ main airport is unusual in that non of the major hotel brands are situated within easy reach. The nearest Marriott is 17 miles away downtown – which would surely be illegal in North America, where every arrival gate has to be within 600 yards of a Marriott to qualify as an arrival gate (no – I’m not being serious – but this might be true!).

As we pulled up outside the hotel reception, two things struck me. One, this was a residential house that had been inflated by a building on the side, and two, this wasn’t like the photo online. Still, it was only a mile and a half from the terminal, ideal for my very early getaway the following morning. Alice had also secured for me that they would try to get me an early check in if they could. Evidently, they could. The languid youth sprang from behind the reception desk and like a gazelle, he leapt up a set of steep wooden stairs off to the side that headed out into the carbuncle built on the side – bidding me to follow him. There was no assistance offered with my bags. We walked across a metal gangway and passed a row of what looked like prison cells. He opened a room, tossed the key on the bed and ushered me in ahead of him. It was starting to feel like a scene from a police show where they raid the room and one officer opens the door and another takes the risk heading into the room first. I was taking the risk and he wasn’t following me. From the safety of the doorway he explained something time sensitive based in his incessant watch pointing and he did so in rough Spanish (like I would know). After surveying the room, I figured out he was telling me that this room would be damaging to my health if I spent more than an hour at a time inside without going out for breath (or maybe they weren’t finished servicing it and they would be back – with a sanitation and decorating crew)! In fact, they hadn’t finished servicing and they did and it made no difference. This room was rough. No, this was beyond rough. The bathroom stunk. With the door fully closed – the bathroom stunk – even when standing on the other side of the door. It meant the bedroom stunk too! I still managed to while away the day, drifting in and out of sleep, reading, working on some stuff, watching CNN and BBC World news (which seemed to have the same content and the same reporters – good to know!) and walking around the neighborhood. I was perplexed as to why this hotel wasn’t living up to the glowing reviews it had received online (I started to assume they were planted and translated by Goggle Translator). In fairness, every member of staff I’d met was friendly and helpful (barring the lack of luggage carrying when I initially arrived). A brisk walk around the neighborhood answered the question about the reviews. I had booked the wrong hotel! There was a second hotel with a very similar sounding name – just a couple of hundred years around the corner. It looked inviting. It looked appealing. I was pissed!

As my alarm rang out at 3.20am the next morning – my phone simultaneously rang and whoever was on phone duty announced it as time to get up. When I got downstairs, reception was manned and there was a driver ready to shuttle me to the terminal. My room might have been rough, but this place delivered on everything their people promised me. I could give the name of the hotel now – but then you would be able to avoid it should you ever have the need to visit Buenos Aires airport and stay over – and I don’t want to spoil your fun! I was finally off on the trek down Argentina and across Tierra del Fuego to Patagonia, via the Straits of Magellan. First leg – a flight to Rio Grande, Argentina…needless to say, I was heading into the stupid phase!

I always get a little tense about checking in when I know I’m disadvantaged by a foreign language, local customs or the rules of a new airline. In this case, I had all three to deal with. I had a sneaking suspicion my check in bag was going to be adjudicated as being too heavy, but I’d made a value judgement that one of the agents, a very pretty, highly efficient, smiling agent who, in my estimation, was likely to be the most helpful! How wrong could I be. I managed to get to the front of the slowish moving line (the size and speed of the line surprised me at 4.15am in the morning – long, slow, but moving) – so I got to the front right in time to get the agent I had my eye on. Her greeting, which she said with a broad smile on her face – sounded cold. She really was cold. She told me with fluid English that my bag was way too heavy – way too heavy – could have been weigh too heavy, I failed to ask for clarification. It was showing to be 3 kilos heavier than what I’d checked it in in Dallas – strange, I’d not added anything too it! It was also showing 3 Kilos above the limit – exactly 3 kilos – again, strange.  What surprised me was that she now wanted to weigh my hand luggage – which I knew was heavy. “You cannot have all of this weight” she said shaking her head. “You need to take 4 kilos from the small and into the big one. “The plane is too small and if you take all of this weight on to the plane – the plane will not be able keep flying if there is turbulence.” Now I was confused and a little concerned – because both bags were going onto the same plane (I hoped) , the same plane as I was going on (I hoped). Which ever way you looked at this, the total weight was going to be the same. This made no sense, but neither did I “So, I cannot have this much weight INSIDE the plane” I said, lifting up my pack to demonstrate I could raise it with one hand (I had been working out!).

“Yes – No – of course. It is the combined weight that is the issue. If you shift things over to the other bag I will not charge you anything more extra.”Apparently weight weighs less if you put it in the hold of an aircraft. I wasn’t going to argue and I crammed my camera and a bag of electrical leads into the big red checked bag, thus increasing my angst about losing my bag and my belongings while I would be stuck in the depths of Tierra del Fuego waiting for the next flight (which was the following day). My schedule didn’t allow for me to wait for any lost luggage! If I was stuck waiting a day then I was stuck waiting a full week to get on the following weeks flight over to the Falklands, which I would have missed because of the missing bag… You get the picture. I said goodbye to my big bag and I was dispatched by the cruel gate agent over to a cashiers office where I paid $27 and the clerk efficiently issued me with my boarding card. 

Security was a breeze (“no, you can leave everything in your bag, but your shoes must come off please”) and there was no immigration because I was flying within the country. I had been tracking the weather in Buenos Aires since before I left Dallas and it had remained resolutely on track for major thunderstorms to roll through right around 5.00am that morning. It was now 4.30am. A delay to my flight of more than about 30 minutes would mean I would likely miss my bus in Rio Grande and I would need to put plan B into action. There’s always plan B, which had been forged the day before by Alice and I – and it involved a local taxi firm driving me to over to Punta Arenas. I had loads of confidence in a Chilean Bus company doing it on a “Pullman Boos” – but a local taxi firm – hmm. Also, this was an 8 hour ride – so 16 hours for the poor driver – and you can imagine this wasn’t going to be cheap! The “boos” was $38 (and included refreshments and a snack)! The taxi option was x12 this amount.

The gate area was the very definition of organization, but maybe not efficiency. But, my confidence level increased. Again, there was organization here – where in previous visits this would have been quite Darwinian when boarding, now it was status (and I had none). The gate agent had us lined up by status and row number and as I found out, touching the ropes that held us back was met with a public announcement in Spanish and English – “Do not touch the queuing systems without authority.” I thought queuing system was a bit much for three old red ropes – but there you are. “Thunder storms are expected presently in the area.” Here we go I thought, we’re about to be locked in – at the gate and my entire plan will be scuppered. An agent was posted outside behind two sets of firmly closed glass doors and he seemed to have his eyes locked on the heavens. What a terrible frame of mind to have – so negative, but the unreasonable way this route was imposed on me and the abrupt and shortened departure still had me in a funk. The display board above the desk announced a boarding time of 5.20am and a take-off time of 5.40am. By 5.20am we were ahead of time and by 5.30am we were roaring along the runway. Here we were ahead of time – not a thunder storm in sight.

At 8.35am, 25 minutes before schedule, we landed in Rio Grande. At 8.45am I picked up my checked bag (and nonchalantly checked the contents – all present and correct), headed to the exit, picked up a waiting taxi (which Alice had checked would be there) and headed for downtown Rio Grande and the Bus Station. I pondered the state of the taxis waiting outside the airport – which in fairness was just a tidy, but quite robust shed. The awaiting taxis all looked like they were remnants from a natural disaster somewhere – battle scarred, and sagging for lack of suspension. The thought having to sit in one of these for 8 hours didn’t bare thinking about. I wanted my Pullman Seat on my executive Chilean coach and it was looking like I might just get it. I was almost through the toughest part of the plan – the tidal gate for the sailors amongst us – getting to the bus on time. Once on the other side of this short taxi ride and it was pretty much smooth sailing.

I though to myself – in a non congratulatory and a don’t count your chickens sort of way – this nonsense of a plan might actually work! 

Pip pip!

Hello!

You’ll probably find the flow of bogs that will follow this one – a little erratic! That’s because the only connection I have with the outside world – that’s you guys – is via a satellite phone and its really expensive (you’re worth it). I will send simple e-mails to Alice in Boston and she will post them on the blog. She will also collect your comments and send them back to me so I can see what’s being said. You might find there’s nothing for a couple of days – and then two or three – or you may not! Until I find a rhythm to life here – it’s hard to know what time I’ll have and when.

Right now, the boat is tied up here in Stanley (used to be referred to as Port Stanley, I believe) in the Falklands – so now you know that I made it – just not how and when! We are on shore power and shore water – so luxurious.

We’ll be pushing out next Saturday to spend 10 hours cruising around the Islands and then we’ll return to Stanley to clean ourselves up and head across to Cape Town, South Africa. For now – the luxuries are small and most welcome!

The story will soon begin!

Pip pip!