Return to Ushuaia

Sunday, 8 March 2020

Our "trip of a lifetime" is over, and we're back in Ushuaia, waiting for the first of our three flights to return home. We were lucky to have completed our trip when we did, as the coronavirus pandemic was beginning to be felt outside Asia, and much travel was being curtailed. We had been traveling in what was probably the safest area of the world, and got home without incident. A week or two later the return would have been much more difficult as countries started shutting down borders.

It's cool and windy, but last night's fog had lifted and the Beagle Channel views were spectacular.

Downtown Ushuaia waterfront as seen from the pier.

While we waited for our buses to the airport, we had a visit to the Ushuaia History Museum, an old prison that has been turned into a nice museum that encompasses prison memorabilia, maritime history, military history, an art gallery, and, of course, a gift shop. This is a view down the gallery that preserves the old prison.

Apparently a while ago Ushuaia had a penguin statue exhibit around town. (It was quite a thing a few years back to have standard statues painted by various artists and groups to be placed around a city.) The museum had quite a few on display.

After visiting the museum, we walked back through town and along Ushuaia's park-like waterfront. I liked this rendition of an albatross sheltering the native residents of Ushuaia.

We got a final view of the National Geographic Explorer.

Looking east down the Beagle Channel.

As we got to the airport, a subtile rainbow appeared in the clouds.

Falkland Islands - Beaver Island, New Island

Friday, 6 March 2020

Our trip is coming to an end. Today is our last day of excursions, then we spend all of tomorrow at sea towards Ushuaia.

Our first stop of the day was Beaver Island. This island has not been visited by tour/expedition ships and was a totally new experience for the ship's crew, naturalists, and, of course, passengers. We passed through two small "settlements" (hardly worthy of the term "colony") of gentoo penguins on our way to the cliffs.

A Patagonian gray fox was lurking in the grass behind the gentoos. An adult penguin is too large for the fox to take down.

The penguins know that the fox is not a threat to adults, and at this time of the year, there are no vulnerable eggs or chicks. Several molting gentoos are in the background.

Cliffs on the Atlantic side of Beaver Island.

For our afternoon excursion we repositioned to a protected harbor on New Island, not far from Beaver Island. It is the westernmost inhabited island in the Falklands, and thus the closest to Ushuaia. A wrecked ship is prominent at the landing.

Looking back down the easy trail to the landing beach and ship.

A short walk from the settlement and small museum brought us to the Atlantic Ocean side where there is a black-browed albatross rookery. This is a chick molting into adult plumage.

The island is also noted for its rockhopper penguin colony. The yellow tags label individual rockhopper nests that are the subject of research by an active research group on the island.

Turkey vultures in the high tussock grass near the penguin and albatross rookeries.

The tussock grass grows much taller in the Falklands than it does on South Georgia - a testament to the milder climate in the Falklands.

The striated caracara, also known as the "Johnny Rook".

The striated caracara in flight.

Falkland Islands - Bleaker Island

Thursday, 5 March 2020

During lunch and early afternoon the ship repositioned to Bleaker Island four hours to the west. Bleaker is known for its colonies of rockhopper penguins, Magellanic penguins, gentoo penguins, and blue-eyed cormorants. Much of a former sheep farm has now been converted into a wildlife sanctuary.

The Magellanic penguins have completed their breeding season, and the vast majority have returned to the ocean. These penguins are unique in that they live in burrows excavated in the soft soil.

Rockhopper penguins are the stars on this island. Rockhoppers live high above the sea on cliffs. It's quite a job getting up to their nesting sites. Here a blue-eyed cormorant joins the penguins.

Up close it's obvious how this cormorant got its name.

Rockhoppers.

A close look at a rockhopper's colorful head feathers.

As we got back to the Zodiacs for our return to the ship, a large group of gentoo penguins greeted us. They had just come out of the water, walked about 50 feet down the beach, and then all went back into the water.

This evening was the only time we really got a good sunset.

Falkland Islands - Cape Pembroke, Stanley Harbor

Thursday, 5 March 2020

There were three options for excursions this morning. Lon and I chose to go for on the nature walk along Cape Pembroke, just east of Stanley.

The beach along the cape is sandy in spots, and rocky in spots.

There were a number of Peale's Dolphins swimming in the shallow waters.

Mostly what we saw were birds. These are steamer ducks.

Upland geese are beautiful and plentiful.

The "roots" of kelp came up several feet above the water. They looked more like tentacles of some sea creature rather than a plant. Lichens were also plentiful on the rocks.

A rocky beach with plenty of tidal pools.

On our way out of Stanley, we passed the massive cruise ship, the Norwegian Star. This ship is too large to dock in Stanley, so passengers who wanted to come ashore had to take a 15 to 20 minute ride on a tender to get to town.

The tender port on the starboard side of the Norwegian Star. There was a similar port on the port side.

Falkland Islands - Stanley

Wednesday, 4 March 2020

We arrived in Stanley about 2 PM, and had a short bus tour of the town and nearby environs.

The "narrows", the passage into the inner harbor where Stanley Town is situated.

After the mountains of the Antarctic Peninsula and South Georgia, the Falklands look flat and green. Stanley stretches along the waterfront for several miles.

There seem to be wrecked ships everywhere you look. This is the Lady Elizabeth.

Stanley has a small airport. The red plane that is landing is one of the air taxis that service the remote farms and islands.

Many Falklanders burn peat for heat. This is a typical peat cut, where peat is cut from the ground in rough cubes.

The cubes of peat are then set aside to dry. This can take a while - perhaps a year. Many homes in Stanley have sheds where peat can be placed to dry under cover.

The "Totem Pole" where signs showing direction and distance to many cities have been placed.

The town museum ("Historic Dockyard Museum") is on the waterfront in the middle of town. Among the thousands of items on display is a nice diorama of Falklands wildlife. Just don't feed the birds!

Lon liked this portable dentist's chair that was ported around the islands by boat and Land Rover.

The classic Stanley Town photo - the whalebone arch and the Christ Church Cathedral. By the time we finished with the museum at 5:30 PM, most of the other sites in town had shut down, so we weren't able to enter the cathedral.

In 1982 Argentina attacked the Falklands, and Britain responded by solidly defeating the Argentine troops. Argentina still considers the Falklands to be theirs, calling the islands the "Malvinas". This sentiment ("The Malvinas are Argentinian") can be found on buses and signs all over Ushuaia - the one above was on our tour bus in Ushuaia. Now that we have visited the Falklands, it is clear that they are so thoroughly British in culture that it would be difficult to imagine them as part of Argentina. Interestingly, geologically it appears that they have broken off southern Africa, not South America.

South Georgia - Prion Island, Fortuna Bay

Sunday, 1 March 2020

Prion Island is a small islet in the Bay of Isles on the north shore of the western end of South Georgia. It's directly across the mountains (and glaciers) from Peggotty Camp on King Haakon Bay where Shackleton landed on South Georgia (and began his trek to Stromness). Prion Island is known for its black-browed albatross nests, and in recent years has also had a growing fur seal colony.

Only 50 people are allowed on shore at any one time on Prion Island. And you must stay on the boardwalk, which rises 189 steps and about 100 ft to observation platforms. Numerous Antarctic fur seals were on the beach and boardwalk, getting a bit aggressive at times. We were in the third group to go onshore, so the seals had mostly left the boardwalk by the time we arrived.

A black-browed albatross on a nest in the tussock.

A black-browed albatross lands in the tussock.

Looking across the bay to South Georgia. We had a gloriously sunny morning.

Lichens and tussock grass on Prion Island cliffs.

We got close to several right whales on our way back to Fortuna Bay, where we had a choice of afternoon excursions.

Flukes of a right whale diving.

Our afternoon at Fortuna Bay had very different weather - cold, windy, and rainy at sea level, snowing just a bit higher.

Fortuna Bay has a huge colony of ever-photogenic king penguins.

These king penguins are incubating eggs in their brood pouch. Kings have a very long three-year breeding cycle, and the chicks take 14 to 16 months to fledge. As a consequence, unlike other, very seasonal, penguin breeding colonies, a king penguin colony is usually occupied year-round, with a variety of life stages in the colony at any one time.

The king penguin egg is huge, and the shell is thick. This one had been predated by a skua, but the shell was mostly intact.

A skua feeding on a dead penguin. Skuas predate eggs and chicks, but generally not adult penguins. However, a skua will avail itself of any carrion that it comes across.

This turned out to be our last day on South Georgia. We skipped a morning excursion planned for tomorrow because the weather was supposed to get really bad. (And it did. The wind gusts were over 75 knots, which would have precluded any excursions and made for very rough seas.)