Exploring West Falkland (Feb. 9, Frithjof)

I am writing today’s blog on the ferry from Port Howard to New Haven, returning to East Falkland after a day and 2 nights in West Falkland, full of activities and experiences.

After a rich breakfast in the Port Howard Lodge, a historic metal-clad, wooden Falklands building (πιθανώς στοιχώμενο, η Αλεξάνδρα άκουσε παράξενα πράγματα αυτή τη νύχτα), we hit the dusty, bending road to the settlement of Dunnose Head on the west side of Port Philomel – a large natural inlet on the west side of West Falkland, where Skottsberg had found that mysterious Cladochroa around 110 years ago – and nobody had seen it ever since. West Falkland is even more sparsely populated and scenic than East Falkland. Thankfully, small dirt roads now connect all settlements, off-roading is no longer required but taking anything else than a 4WD over here still is not a good idea. The West Island has a very complex topography of mountain ranges, inlets, surrounding offshore islands and river systems. We passed the settlements of Chartres and Little Chartres (the latter is a lonely farm house with a barn and an aerogenerator) and, after around 2 ½ h we reached our much-sought destination. For Aldo, this clearly was a much-awaited moment for many years. He rushed to the intertidal and started searching, accompanied by Alexandra, while I got into my dry suit and started snorkelling in the 1-2 m shallow waters of this inlet. Within minutes, Aldo gave the victory sign – he had picked up something that matched Skottsberg’s historic drawing of Cladochroa. He showed it to Alexandra and myself, and we continued the hunt, picking up similar-looking things on the shore and in the shallow waters. Of course, only closer, microscopic inspection of the material back at SAERI in Stanley would tell us whether we had indeed in our hands what we were after.

The first and major objective of the long and expensive trip to West Falkland was met. We now drove back to the main road, and then to the twin settlements of Fox Bay East and Fox Bay West in the south of the West Island, taking fresh water samples from ponds and small rivers for Pieter’s oomycete isolation work on the way. Every sample was taken in a 15 ml Falcon tube, to which either sterile rice grains or hemp seeds were added as bait. We reached Fox Bay (I was wondering whether the name was a reminder of the now-extinct Warrah or Falkland Fox, hunted to extinction by the first farmers in the 19^th century – Charles Darwin had still encountered these almost tame little predators). We did more snorkelling and intertidal collections in both Fox Bay East and Fox Bay West, and then drove back the long way to Port Howard. A huge dinner at the Lodge followed. I then retreated to my tent outside – the temperature was a lot milder than the previous night, but there was a howling storm – I needed ear plugs for being able to sleep! In the early morning hours, the gale subsided, a beautiful sunrise came up – I packed up the tent, loaded the car, we had an early breakfast and then drove onto the ferry. Alexandra and Aldo are catching up on some much-needed sleep while I am writing these lines and I am about to join them…

 

 One of the lonely roads of W Falkland

 Passage Islands off West Falkland

 Kays tent at Port Howard Lodge

 

 Alexandra and Aldo at Skottsbergs study site at NW Bay Pt Philomel

 Alexandra preparing oomycete isolates 

 Approaching NW Bay of Pt Philomel

 Fox Bay West 

 The Isthmus Nature Reserve West Falkland 

 

Fox Bay West

 

Fox Bay West

 Chartres River

 

Little Chartres

 

Uncontrolled peat fire

 

Pt Howard at dusk 

 

Alexandra trying out my dry suit 

Breakfast Pt Howard Lodge 

 

Historic telephone and exchange box Pt Howard Lodge 

Ο Σταύρος του Νότου και τα πρόβατα στο Port Howard, West Falkland The Southern Cross and the sheep in Port Howard, West Falkland (Feb. 7, Frithjof)

Μόλις ξάπλωσα στη σκηνή μου έξω από το Port Howard Lodge, στο μεγαλύτερο χωριό του West Falkland (με 100 κατοικούς πέριπου). Η πόρτα της σκηνής είναι ακόμη ανοιχτή – δεν θέλω να κλείσω ακόμη, δεν με νοιάζει ο παγερός άνεμος, μάλλον απολαμβάνω τη θέα πρός τον ουρανό και σκεφτόμουνα ότι θα ήταν μια καλή στιγμή να μοιραστώ λίγο από μια μεγάλη, ξανα αξέχαστη ημέρα στη νοτιά άκρη του κόσμου με τους διαβάτες μας. Εχουμε ξανά μια απίστευτη, όμορφη καλοκαιρινή ξαστεριά, βλέπω τον Ωρίονα και το Σταύρο του Νότου, τον γαλαξία μας... τ’αστέρια φαίνονται ξανά τόσο δυνατά!! Σκέψεις, όνειρα... Παράδεισος, πραγματικά...  και ακούω εκαντοτάδες πρόβατα!

I am writing these lines relaxing in my tent, gazing at the amazingly strong stars from the open tent door, not really minding the icy, mild breeze, and listening to the hundreds of sheep around me. The Southern Cross, Orion and the Milky Way above me, I can’t stop thinking how lucky we are to be here. Probably about as close to paradise as we could be tonight, even though a fairly cold one.

Tonight we are in Port Howard, the largest settlement (pop. around 100) in the huge West Island. Alexandra and Aldo each got a nice room in the beautiful historic, fairly posh Port Howard Lodge, while I pitched my tent outside on the lawn (between 2 artillery pieces which came here with lots of love from Argentina back in 1982 – back then, around 1000 Argie troops were based right here among around 50 locals).

Another great summer day in the Falklands has come to an end. It started with a frenzy of office and lab work at SAERI in Stanley, a meeting with Paul Brewin of the FI Fisheries Dept for discussing grant proposals, and then sorting out the remaining packing and logistics for our excursion to West Falkland.

We then got our new rental car, a 4WD Toyota Colorado, from a different company than last time – in fact, the only one that would allow a vehicle to be taken over to the remote West Falkland (after the experience of 2 flat tires we were rather relieved to be with a different company now).

I drove the team – Alexandra, Aldo and myself – to the ferry port at New Haven, about 20 miles west of Goose Green on Falkland Sound which took just over 2 h from Stanley. Again, awesome summer weather! In fact, New Haven is merely a pier next to a colony of gentoo penguins, there’s not even a single building of any sort. We boarded the small ferry, MV Concordia. Pre-booking is essential, since it has only a very small capacity for 10 vehicles at the most, even more so since it also carries all cargo between East and West Falkland. Passengers have to spend the 1 ½ - 2 hr crossing of the usually rough Falkland Sound waters in the small passenger cabin which is locked from the outside by water-tight hatches, nobody is allowed outside. The cars outside get heavily washed in sea water during the crossing.

Already during the approach to Port Howard we sensed that some splendid scenery would be awaiting us in the West Island which is even much more sparsely populated than East Falkland. We had dinner in the lodge, then Alexandra helped me to pitch the tent borrowed from Kay McCallum in Stanley, followed by updating specimen logs on our laptop for an hour and a half in the bar. Tomorrow we’ll be exploring several of Skottsberg’s study sites and type localities here in the West, especially around the large inlet of Port Philomel, which he had visited in the early 1900s, apparently without any phycologists (algal scientists) coming back since. We are particularly after the very enigmatic Cladochroa chnoosporiformis (Phaeophyta), which he described from Port Philomel, but which nobody else seems to have collected ever since. Who knows what we are going to find!!

Καλή νύχτα.

 Road traffic w lots of dust in the Falklands

 

With lots of love from Argentina

 

  

 Concordia Bay at New Haven

 

 Pt Howard

 Pt Howard

 Pt Howard

Summer Day in Stanley (Feb. 6, Frithjof)

We have been enjoying a beautiful summer day in Stanley! No excursion today, just office & lab work at SAERI, including logistics preparations for our trip to West Falkland tomorrow and Aldo's and my stopover in Ascension Island next week.

In the afternoon, I got to try out Stanley’s amazingly beautiful swimming pool / leisure centre. Amazing, for a community of less than 3000 people in this town! It is heated by the exhaust heat of the diesel-fired power station, supplying about half of the town’s electricity (the other half comes from wind turbines, putting the renewable ratio in the Falklands above that of most civilized countries).

Tomorrow afternoon, we’ll be driving to New Haven (west of Goose Green) for taking the Workboat Ferry to Port Howard on the east side of West Falkland. Aldo and Alexandra will be staying in the Port Howard Lodge, I’ll be camping in the garden of the Lodge. Don’t expect any e-mail or blog updates from us until the end of the weekend, we’ll be in very remote areas until Saturday.

Summer in Stanley