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The theme today is penguins. Our shuttle bus to the Bluff Cove Penguin Haven wasn’t until 12:30PM, so we had time to explore the town of Stanley in the morning. To avoid the big scramble to get in Tender boats to go ashore earlier in the morning, we waited until after 9:15AM before heading to the gangway, and were rewarded with being able to step right onto a boat with no lines. Winds were 30-40 mph throughout the day, and the tender boat rides were a bit rough, but they’re fully enclosed so we kept dry. The Sapphire Princess was already running their tender boats as we arrived. The land is barren, rocky and treeless. As seen on the map, our ship anchored further out in an outer bay, requiring the tender boats to have to go thru a narrow channel to get to the inner bay and the pier. The ship anchored at the upper star, while the Stanley Cruise pier was at the middle star. Bluff Cove Penguin Haven is the third lower star.

Stanley is a charming little town. At first I thought it to be about the size of Chesapeake Beach, my hometown, but later learned all of Falklands has slight more than 3,000 people, half of what just my town is. The town only goes back a couple of blocks in front from the shore, so pretty tiny.

USo we spent some of the morning visiting the Dockyard Museum, a quant museum covering the history of early settlers in 1800’s, WWII German-British naval battle around Falkland, and of course the Falkland War with Argentina in 1982. Everything stays opens when cruise ships are in town, even if it’s Sunday. And today was the last cruise ships of the season. Checked out the various gift/souvenir shops of course, and had lunch at the cafe inside the town grocery store. Laura bought a postcard at the Post Office and mailed one from Falklands to a lucky unnamed person. US dollars are accepted everywhere here.

Bluff Cove Penguin Haven is privately owned, located about 30 minutes outside of town. Hattie and Kevin Kilmartin own 35,000 acres of land, originally used for a sheep farm, until switching to tourism when the cruise ships started to arrive at Stanley. We reached the Haven on the one paved road out of town, turning off to a private gravel road. Our bus driver said the gravel is fairly new. Before that you switched to 4×4 off-road vehicles for the last half of the trip. The terrain is a bit surreal, reminds me a little of Iceland. It’s very rocky, lots of bogs. There are what are called Rivers of Rock, that appear to run down the hills, creating an impenetrable barrier for animals and vehicles to cross. I couldn’t take any non-blurry pictures of this as the bus speeded down the bumpy gravel road, so I’ve posted a stock photo.

There are two types of penguins with nests at Bluff Cove. The larger King penguins, and the Gentoo penguins. The smaller Magellanic penguins nest on an island across the cover and sometimes come to Bluff Cove beaches. March is the end of the nesting season, so chicks are all hatched, adult penguins are well fed and fat by now and mostly hanging around molting their feathers. Gentoo chicks can be found playing on the beach like kids, while the adults hang around their nests further inshore. Later in winter (June- August) the adult penguins will take turns leaving to find food, traveling sometimes over a 100 miles in their search. The King penguin flock here is fairly small, maybe 50 or so. The adults have bright colors on their head and neck, white breasts and gray backs. Their chicks are still brown, usually sleeping on the ground.

The Gentoo penguins were more numerous, several hundred. They were relatively still, letting the wind help with their molting. Their chicks were more active, more playful.

Didn’t see any Magellanic penguins today, but should at Punta Arenas in a few days. While waiting for our return bus, we had complementary afternoon tea at the Sea Cabbage Cafè with tea/coffee and delicious cookies/cakes. I bought a t-shirt and Laura bought a coffee might at the gift shop. Bus driver gave his tour narrative both out and back into town. Almost every point was about the Falkland War, this is where the Argentines had their western line, here is where we took back control of the ridge suffering heavy artillery, here is where land mines were laid… Seemed a bit obsessive/proud, perhaps similar to some of our own American Civil War sites. Returned to the ship very wind blown.