Saunders Island - The Falkland

The sea was getting rough when we left Stanley to sail around to Saunders Island on the west side of the islands. Rougher still overnight with the ship rolling from side to side and culminated a piece of ceiling cornice falling off narrowly missing the bed. The plan for today is a landing, 10:30 for our group, on Saunders Island, but presumably will need conditions to improve if this is to happen. Now announced that it is too rough to land so will move to an alternative site and try there this afternoon. Had some dolphins alongside during part of the journey ( no good photos though) as we moved to West Point Island, which as the name suggests is the most westerly of this little group. The bay was calm, the island is inhabited (1 family) so there was a small jetty which we used. The sun came out and the wind dropped (a little) so was a really pleasant autumn afternoon and we probably didn’t need all the layers we were wearing. Two walks available, one across the island to a bay with rockhopper penguins and an albatross nesting ground and a second along the coast where there were Magellan penguins. We decided to go across the island so started the long climb from the jetty, then crossing the central plain then a slight descent until we were on top of the cliff above the penguins and albatross chicks. A circular trail had been mapped out to weave closer to the nesting grounds and return to the top, the route was quite overgrown and very muddy, but the one way around system was working quite well until two elderly Australian women decided they didn’t want to do the full route and headed down the way back. Managed to get quite close to the albatross chicks,, even managed to capture a chick being fed. Bit further away from the penguins but you should be able to see their ears which is one of the distinguishing features of a rockhopper. Back across the island we started along the coastal walk to the Magellans. The track was a bit narrow in places where we were crossing some hill slopes, not helped by the camera enthusiasts stopping to balance on their tripods to take pictures. Lots of geese (mostly in pairs) everywhere we went, didn’t spot any sheep or cattle although saw evidence that there should be some somewhere. After 3 hours of walking we caught the zodiac back to the boat.Weiterlesen