Falkland Islands Deployment

I'm in Valparaiso, having docked here this morning. It's taken us the last week and a half to get here, and my first taste of the pacific ocean was preceeded by some pretty spectacular scenery- its worth clicking on all my photos to see them full size. We didn't go round the bottom of South America to leave the atlantic, we went through it! How? By using the Magellan straights and Patagonian Canals. It's the more adventurous way of entering the Pacific, - and it's much more beautiful and scenic. You can see the route we took with my little map I've annotated- it was 600 miles, and took us almost 3 days to complete- and it was well worth it. Deep into the canals the water was absolutely still, the ship just glided along. The canals were mostly quite wide, but at some points we navigated through gaps less than 100 yards wide- I'm not sure if my photos show that very well. But what was more staggering, was that these canals were 600m deep- hard to comprehend when you see all these peaks jutting out of the water all around you. Apparently this is very similar to north west scotland... but I've always been stuck in an engine room when we've been up there. Along the way, there were a few reminders of what can happen if you're not careful- a few ships obviously straying off course in the canals that have been abandoned and shipwrecked. The only thing I was a little disappointed with was the lack of life. It was very desolate, and according to the flight crew, the nearest civilization is a small town 50 miles away. I didn't see any animals or sea life at all, except for a few birds as we came to the end. And at the end, it was a baptism of fire as we entered the pacific, going from immaculately still waters in the canals to gale force winds in just half an hour! The other thing noticeable around here is how clean everything is. The air is super fresh, and the reverse-osmosis plants that make our fresh water are barely putting any work in, as the sea water coming in is so clean. All the photos below are from the patagonian canals.


I haven't much else to report right now. On-watch conversations have got very deep- pondering our very existance, religion, the meaning of life, and whose going to make a whole loaf of toast for our middle* watch feast... (*12am-4am).


Since our last mail delivery was bumped off the last flight to the falklands, We are all looking forward to an extra large delivery today in Valparaiso!






















All the photos above were taken by me. All the photos below were taken by a very good camera on the Lynx helicopter!