Falkland Islands Deployment: September 2009

New Island

Tuesday, 29 September 2009

On this deployment I'm really trying to seize the opportunity to do things or see things that really, I might only ever see once in my entire life. New Island DEFINITELY was that kind of experience. So we've been out to sea for 3 days, and been to visit one of the smaller islands that make up the falklands. If you look on the map, you can see it's all the way out on the west side. We then got a chance to go ashore for just an hour and a half to have a look around. There's only about 6 0r 7 people who live here, in a couple of houses in a really beautiful cove. We saw a helicopter coming across to drop something off, so presumably that's how they cope! This island is one of the most scenic small places I've been, and just what I was looking forward to before I started the deployment. It's full of wildlife, everywhere, predominantly birds. Rabbits are running around everywhere, but I was heading over the mainland to the cliffs, where there was a HUGE albatross colony. I've never really seen any albatross before, so to suddenly see hundreds of thousands of them was quite amazing really. If there's one thing I can say about them- they're all little fatties. I was walking with Baz, and we went down into this kind of mini crater, which turned into a chasm, with a 60-70 metre drop sown into the water below. All around the edge of this crater were Albatross sitting and building their nests. We could walk right by them and they wouldn't bat an eyelid! A little bit further along, and I found this hidden ledge, about 80 metres up the cliff face, where I could just sit, and watch albatross swooping out across the atlantic, just metres in front of me, and the vast colonies dotted on the cliffs. It was absolutely spectacular, I sat there for about 20 minutes taking photos and taking it in! We walked further along the coast taking in all the incredible scenery, like this huge chasm leading down to the sea... and then I realised perched next to us was this incredibly beautiful looking predator bird of some sort... standing on 1 leg! I didn't really get it!? But it looked amazing, and it seemed SO fearless, I was stood a metre from it taking photos. It's the same with all the birds. They couldn't care less about the humans being there, they just get on with.... er.... standing around on 1 leg! Later on I saw what I can only describe as some sort of hawk or something.... can someone name them for me!? I'd love to know the names of some of these- instead of being cluelessly amazed! Something I do know the name of, is a Sea Lion- and I saw one from the top of the cliff! Wow! Except that later on, I found out some of the others explored a different route and saw several sea lions and seals. How annoying!

So what else is amazing about New Island? Well, the water is amazing. It's so clear and it was also sunny- when we got back to the ship we could see the rudders and propellor shafts underneath the ship! And later I got a photo of a dolphin which was swimming around underneath the quarterdeck... The way the land is broken up looks amazing too. I could quite easily have spent the whole day there taking photos and making Attenborough films!

Having spent a couple of days anchored there, we are now heading back round to ECMP. We're going via the Jason Islands though, so there may yet be a chance for some more photos. All my best photos from New Island are at the bottom of this post...

I entered that weight-loss competition, but unfortunatelyI'm being constantly hampered by illness at the moment. Keep getting very blocked up and unfortunately it doesn't help the sleep, so I'm always very tired! Anyway, here's the New Island photos, best of:

So we anchored just off the island, and got the MIB out to transport us to the shore, where we were greeted by these gannet birds (I think)... we've noticed they love diving quite deep to catch fish...

These are just some of the views I could see when me and Baz set off to the other side of the island, in search of Albatross... and we weren't disappointed. We stumbled across a large colony of them all nesting. We could stand just a few metres from them and they didn't care. They're all building nests out of the mud and grass that surrounds them!

The albatross above seems to be busy, while the other one seems pretty content with his nest! Walking just past the colony, the slippery rocks come to a cliff face, with an immediate 150ft drop!

All the photos around here were taken from my vantage point I found, near the top of the cliff face. That little bird looks a lot more English. I wonder if he's lost? See the picture of me below? just to the left of my head you can see where the top of the cliff is really speckley... well the photo next to it is a close up of that. A HUGE colony of Albatross nesting.

These photos show the amazing views I spent ages looking at! And an Albatross.

An albatross, and then from the top of the cliff I spotted a young Sea Lion! Obviously sunning himself a little bit. (Please tell me if I'm wrong about it being a Sea Lion!) Below is one of the amazing chasms that just seems to eat through the island, leaving an amazing picturesque view, and back near the boat landing, a hawk, of which type I have no idea! It was hanging out with it's 5-bird posse.

Specifically Pacific

Sunday, 20 September 2009

So, we left Valparaiso, and here's a photo diary of the last 6 days... Day 1 on our journey south through the pacific:

Day 2. Oh look, a bird.

Day 3.

Day 4.

WO! Hold on a minute... What on earth is THAT!?!? Here's a better photo I got moments later!:

Yeah! So after the last 7 years of waiting (well, it's one of the things I've always wanted to see out in the wild), I've finally seen a whale! Actually- I saw 2! Later on another one came up right alongside the ship. And I tell you what, I'm glad I was on such a big ship because it was terrifyingly HUGE! I think it must have been about 10-12 metres in length... although it's quite hard to judge... and then some of the spotters on the bridge later told me they were both Sperm Whales- so I guess that makes sense. On terms of spectacular things to see, that's a pretty good one for me. Though, the dolphins in Cape Verde, for me, were still better. But that's another tick in the box I guess! There's another tick in the box I made today actually- because instead of sailing back through patagonia, we went all the way round Cape Horn, the most southernly point of America. The spectacle wasn't so great because of the mist, but at the point the photo was taken, I was 8,332 miles from home. That is probably the furthest from home I will ever be. Infact I checked- it's further away than Hawaii, or Japan or most of Asia or Africa. Infact I think really, unless I go to Antarctica, the only place I'd go to, further away than Cape Horn, is Australia or New Zealand. Interesting eh?

So I'll be in the Falklands again now for another 2 months. We get back to ECMP on Monday... and I'm wondering what to look forward to. There's a weight-loss competition between now and the end of deployment. I was thinking, maybe I could do that- but unfortunately this ship has a habit of, every so often, ordering in those really BIG packets of Minstrels- which automatically writes off any fitness regime I attempt. I've had a pretty fat 3 weeks though- time for change me thinks.

Well what else can I tell you? My trusty ipod has mostly been playing Royksopp and Kings Of Leon, I am onto my 3rd toothbrush this deployment, and for 1 reason or another, every time my clothes come back from the laundry, I seem to gain a couple of thick black socks. My underwear drawer is really struggling.

Thank you to everyone sending me mail at the moment- really appreciate it. Here's to the next 2 months of photos you've already seen....!!!! (I'm joking- I hope!)

Oh by the way, unfortunately I only realised you all left me comments on recent blog updates just today, since I now have to moderate them. And just incase you were thinking about it, please don't use any swear words in a comment, unfortunately I can't publish them!

Valparaiso, Vina Del Mar & Santiago

Sunday, 13 September 2009

So the mail finally arrived. All 500 bags of it after it had apparently got lost somewhere... and so we basically had Christmas morning onboard! I got lots of DVDs, a couple of letters, and some sweets and a jumper (thanks Laura- I'd love to say I hate the jumper, but I really love it!) ...and here's me eating some of the sweets I got sent, wearing my new jumper!

I've just been in Valparaiso for the last 2 weeks, which included a weekend in Santiago. Valparaiso is all very old and not very lively, so every day I went out, we got a metro 20 minutes up the coast to 'Vina Del Mar', which is full of shops and bars and pretty much everything commercial... But the one thing that is really great here, is the markets. There's lots of them, and they are all very diverse. Unfortunately for me- every single one had a few stalls selling weird and wonderful native and hand-made musical instruments... everything from little plucky string things to full on animal skin side-drums and sitars! Take a look at the photos!

I won't say everything that I bought, but my favourite instrument was a "Charango"- basically like a small guitar, like a mandolin, with 10 strings... sounds amazing. I loved it so much I bought a hippy colour case to keep it in as well... The plan is to now learn it over the next 3 months or so and then go busking at Christmas.

There's not much else really to say about Valparaiso and Vina Del Mar, as I haven't really explored them like I have done in other places- but this fortnight was designed as rest and recuperation, and that's exactly what I've done. I can tell you that the bars are good, and the restaurants too... (McDonald's not so good...) £1 gets you a litre of Corona...

So instead of going skydiving, or skiing or something that I would have definitely loved, I got a hotel in Santiago for the weekend. It's a pretty big place- 5 million is the population. We got stuck into the markets as soon as we got there, and if you like shopping, Santiago's not a bad place to go. In the evening (Friday 4th), we were recommended to go to a club called 'The Murano' in Las Condes, which is the rich area in Santiago. Clubs open at midnight here, and close at 5am- so we had a meal first before having a late night! It was absolutely brilliant though (I don't go clubbing much)... I started dancing like (apparently) only I can- kind of like slow motion falling over I think... mind you, a girl called Carolina liked it... though, she really didn't speak any English. Kind've a problem. Well no, that's a lie- the problem is that we don't speak Spanish. If you know Spanish, you can cope in any country in South America at all. We relied on Asbo a lot, he knows enough Spanish to get by. But Carolina DID speak a little German. So we tried that for a few minutes- and then realised neither of us knew what we were talking about. Apart from that, it was a great evening!

On the Saturday I went out with Olly- a massive risk as neither of us spoke any Spanish. That was immediately evident, as we went to the suburb of Nunoua, where we heard there was a jazz club. We went for what looked like a really smart Italian restaurant first- only to find that they mistook us for a gay couple (my leather jacket probably didn't help matters), and sat us down in a room on our own, for a candlelit dinner, with Wham! playing out in the background!

After that, we couldn't find the jazz club, and felt increasingly worried with the lack of English-speaking Chileans. It was about that point, after a couple of drinks, that I checked with these 2 girls to see if they spoke English. My exact question was "Are you American"- to which they replied "No. We're from California..."- the way that sort of rolled off the tongue kind of reminded me of Scottish patriotism or perhaps most Everton football fans. Their names were Casey & Annette, and they were studying something apparently... What was far more useful to us, was the fact that they spoke fluent spanish, and as me and Olly were feeling like fish out of water, we latched onto them and took them on our night out... well, I say 'our' night out, they showed us where all the best places to go were, and we ended up at a club called 'Le Ferrier'... which is the only nightclub I've been to with no moving lights. Was a little easier on the eye! After 3 months of not meeting any naturally english-speaking girls face-to-face, the evening was like a breath of fresh air for both me and Olly, and I think for them too! We all shared a lot of stories, and, er... drink- was a proper jolly knees up!

There's just one more thing that happened over the weekend that really made my week here- On saturday at 3 o'clock sharp, Olly and I were web-surfing, in order to enter the Mongol Rally 2010. It's something we'd been thinking about for a few months- but sign up typically only takes 2 minutes for 5000 teams to enter... so we were ecstatic to have our place confirmed on the rally. Over the course of the next year, we will be setting up a lot of fund-raising activities and events, to raise money for, aswell as gaining sponsorship for the rally- and all the money we raise will be going towards a few charities, like Christina Noble Children's Foundation, supporting kids in Mongolia. I won't blab too much more about this now, because I'll be using all my social time to do it when I get back- but basically I'll be driving 10,000 miles through massively dangerous territory in a 1 litre car, over terrain such as the ghobi desert and various mountain ranges. It's stupid, and death is a massive likelihood. That's why we'll be expecting some generous donations!

So I've put a whole load of photos below of random places that I've been or people I've met over the last couple of weeks:

So there's the guy in the market in Vina Del Mar I bought my Charango off, and next to him is a really tall building in Santiago... Below is an amazing sunset in Vina Del Mar, and Nath & Coxy in the world's smallest elevator. It was quite scary- each person that got in it made it sink 2 inches!

Above is me and Olly sharing a romantic candlelit dinner, Asbo in a bit of bondage gear he found in a market (and spike), there's me and coxy relaxing in the hotel, and 4 incredibly muscley guys out to do a bit of karaoke...!

There's Coxy, Spike, Asbo and me out at the Murano, with 4 girls who required a dance... there's the price of petrol (move the decimal once to the left), some very strong local ale, and our ship docked alongside, highlighted courtesy of moi

There's wan's party trick, and a heavenly amount of musical riff raff in the markets of Santiago! The scenery is of the Andes, which we saw when leaving Santiago (I was asleep on the way there), and below that is the "Esmeralda"- a steam powered sail ship, which was a torture ship during the reign of General Pinochet. She was docked alongside us for most of our time here. Oh yeah, and me standing in Santiago with some big tower.