In the Falkland Islands, a Week Is Not Enough

As a travel writer myself, I’ve long enjoyed The New York Times 52 Places Traveler, in which a single writer (now one much younger than myself) spends a year exploring the world and producing weekly dispatches from some relatively well-known destinations and other more remote ones. In my own experience, the logistics of organizing several months of travel is taxing enough in my three chosen countries—Argentina, Chile and to a lesser degree Uruguay—that I truly admire the drive and skills of the chosen individual. This year, that individual is Sebastian Modak, whose dispatches appears every Sunday (in print and online).

An aerial view of Stanley Harbour, looking east,
with the city airport at the upper left

For part of 1986-7, we resided in a house belonging to the Sheepowners' Association, at 63 Fitzroy Road.

Yesterday,  Modak’s column dealt with the Falkland Islands, a personal favorite where I spent more than a year as a Fulbright-Hays scholar in 1986-7 and have returned at least half a dozen times. He went, apparently, in early July—“a couple of weeks after the winter solstice”—and says that there were only three other tourists on the Islands (I’m skeptical of that claim). The highlight was penguins, though the only species he mentions are kings and gentoos, which are present year-round (macaronis, rockhoppers and Magellanics are migratory summer residents).

Penguins in Winter 

King penguins are the biggest attraction - except for the nearby elephant seals - at Volunteer Point.

On FIGAS's "Round Robin" flights, visitors can view impressive periglacial "stone runs" from above.

To see the kings, at East Falkland’s Volunteer Point, Modak took advantage of Falklands Helicopter Services, a new enterprise that obviates the need for an all-day Land Rover tour from the capital of Stanley, but that comes at a cost of £349 (about US$430) per person, with a two-person minimum (cheaper overland options are possible, but probably not in July). I can certainly concur, however, with his recommendation of the “Round Robin Flights” by the Falkland Islands Government Air Service (FIGAS) that can give visitors a spectacular aerial overview of the entire archipelago at a fraction of that cost. He also went overland to the settlement of Darwin to see the Bodie Bridge, the world’s southernmost suspension bridge that’s apparently on its last legs (er, towers…) in the peninsula of Lafonia (while I have visited Darwin, I never made it farther south to the bridge).

Darwin from the air

Bodie Suspension Bridge, under construction in 1925 (Creative Commons)

Stranded in Stanley?

Ross Road, Stanley, as it appeared in early 1987.

The Historic Dockyard Museum is part of Stanley's renovated waterfront.

Modak, meanwhile, is almost shockingly silent on the capital of Stanley even though, of necessity, he spends several days there because weather delays his departure from the Islands. That’s not an uncommon occurrence but, for a journalist scheduled to report on 52 destinations in 52 weeks, it’s a major inconvenience. He uses the time to explore Stanley’s pub culture but, somehow, he overlooks a surprisingly creative food scene and the Historic Dockyard Museum—which might the best in the world for a town of its size (about 2,500 residents).

The Tasty Treat snackbar serves items such as St. Helenian plo - chicken and bacon with vegetables and rice in a South African curry,  topped with a fried egg.

Roast reindeer - once culled from South Georgia and now raised on West Falkland - is on the menu at Malvina House Hotel.

While the Falklands is much more than 1982 war between Britain and Argentina, the museum offers a professionally measured description of that conflict, which he says comes up with virtually everybody he meets. That’s not quite my experience, even though my wife is an Argentine who also spent a year there with me (on her US passport). He also, apparently, overlooked the multi-ethnic melting pot that the Islands have become since the war, with Chileans, Saint Helenians or "Saints," and even Argentines (there have always been some and, at one point, there was an Argentine policewoman).

During the 1982 war, Eileen Vidal kept countryside residents current on happenings in Stanley and elsewhere via radio telephone. When we lived there, she always knew where everybody was.

While Modak had some trouble getting out of the Islands he does, in my experience, overstate their inaccessibility and remoteness: “Consumed by a sense of total isolation, I leaned into the rare feeling of being off the map, stuck somewhere and part of a small community of travelers.” In fact, the Islanders themselves have always been in constant contact with the outside world—whether by mailboat, amateur radio, telephone and now Internet—and often express a sophisticated understanding of overseas events. The Internet may be slow and expensive—I can attest to that—but, as he acknowledges, there will now be a second weekly flight from the South American continent (in addition to the well-established connection with Santiago and Punta Arenas, Chile).

In the summer high season, cruise ship visits can nearly double Stanley's population - briefly.

Had he visited in January, when cruise ships can double Stanley’s population for a day, he might have adjusted his conclusion that “There’s no chance of ever being a major destination…” The Islands may be a niche experience, but one that’s likely to grow, especially as the logistics improve for those who prefer to be land-based. That’s my preference, I’ve been back at least half a dozen times, and I’ll do so again soon.

Post-Script

While the Argentine occupation left large numbers of land mines,  demining efforts have been successful and no civilian has ever been injured.

This being The New York Times, it’s worth mentioning the readers’ comments, of which there were just 17—almost all of them superficial and a couple astonishingly ignorant. One Patty Mutkoski of Ithaca lamented that there was no place for “long walks” because of “all the land mines left over from the war.” As someone who undertook multi-day treks on both East and West Falkland only four years after the conflict, and has seen the results of removal efforts since then, I can assert that there are many fine hiking opportunities around Stanley and also on the outer islands, such as Pebble, Saunders and Carcass. The biggest obstacle is not land mines, but rather the almost incessant winds.

A hike along the headlands of Saunders Island passes through The Rookery, with large colonies of black-browed albatrosses, cormorants, and penguins.

Another reader, Barbara from California, bemoaned that she “didn’t understand why the USA was sending troops to the Falklands [in 1982], and I still don’t, now.” Perhaps that’s because the United States never sent a single soldier there; in fact, the Reagan Administration made every effort to appease Argentina’s military dictatorship before finally providing rhetorical support for British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher’s counter-invasion. Another commenter, MBV from New York, dismissively proclaimed that “There’s nothing to see here, and it shows.” Just because Modak missed an opportunity doesn’t make that true.

Post-Post Script

Purely coincidentally, my own “Exploring the Falkland Islands” is the cover article on the new issue of Patagon Journal, available online and in hard copy.

Black-Browed Albatross Stages Comeback; Plus, Five-Star Falklands?

In the course of more than a year in the Falkland Islands, from January 1986 through February 1987, I grew to adore the place. Just four years earlier, it had been the site of brief but contentious conflict when Argentina’s vicious military dictatorship invaded and occupied them on the basis of an ambiguous 19th-century territorial claim, and held them for 74 days before being dislodged by a British task force. During those ten weeks, the territory changed from a state without police – local cops did not even carry firearms – to a police state that threatened them and their property.

My own stay, funded by a Fulbright-Hays Doctoral Dissertation Research Abroad fellowship, gave me plenty of time to get to know the islands, which were much more than just a war zone – they are also a great biosphere reserve and home to a local population who made us feel at home – in fact, several of them even shared their homes with us, despite my wife’s suspect Argentine nationality (she traveled there on her US passport, as Argentines passports were then unacceptable to local authorities).

Over our 13 months, we enjoyed observing enormous amounts of wildlife in what felt like a sub-Antarctic Galápagos, at least in the sense that the countless birds and numerous marine mammals were virtually fearless – it was easy to approach penguins and other birds, not to mention marine mammals such as southern elephant seals, for photographs. I now have thousands of photos of Falklands fauna, many of them taken on succeeding trips as I have updated my Moon Handbook to Patagonia.

The difference, of course, is that the Galápagos’ species diversity is far greater; the Falklands have fewer species, but greater numbers of individuals in sprawling shoreline colonies. Five different species of penguins breed in the Islands, with occasional visitors as well, but they’re not my favorite birds here.

Rather, I prefer the black-browed albatross (pictured above), with its almost porcelain beauty, which is easiest to see and approach on Saunders Island, one of the archipelago’s largest islands after East and West Falkland. At The Rookery, near the sandy isthmus called The Neck that virtually separates Saunders in two, these curious birds warily waddle up to visitors who take a seat nearby.

That’s why I was encouraged to read that the species, which Falklanders call the “mollymawk,” is recovering from a population decline that had placed it on the IUCN endangered species list because long-line fishing had contributed to high mortality rates. Seventy percent of the species breeds in the islands, though there are also substantial numbers on South Georgia (which, unfortunately, I have never been able to visit). According to local conservationist Sally Poncet, whom I know fairly well, South Georgia mollymawk numbers have not recovered in the way Falklands populations have.

Five-Star Falklands?

Meanwhile, the new director of Falkland Islands Tourism, Tony Mason (whom I have never met, as he only recently took over the job) has suggested that the Islands are ready for their first five-star hotel. At the moment, accommodations in the capital of Stanley consist mostly of cozy B&Bs plus the Malvina House Hotel (pictured below), which would be good accommodations almost anywhere. Nearly all the Islands’ tourism is cruise-ship based and, when things get crowded in town, beds can be hard to come by (on a handful of occasions when high seas and winds have made it impossible for cruise passengers to return to their vessels, local authorities have had to appeal to residents to open their spare rooms to the temporarily stranded).

The question is whether a country whose total population is barely 3,000 (of whom roughly 2,000 reside in the capital) can justify the construction and operation of a facility that will sit virtually empty about half the year (the wildlife season runs from September to March or April). Given the limited and precarious overseas communications (weekly flights from Chile, depending on a capricious Argentine foreign policy, and two or three charters a month from the Brize Norton, Oxfordshire), devoting limited resources to such a project would seem debatable. Even the most well-to-do sightseers and wildlife-watchers would probably only stay there at the beginning and the end of their visits. Maintaining that level of service in a destination with a limited labor force would appear to be a real challenge.

From the Falklands: Prize-Winning Shearers, Award-Winning Services

When I lived in the Falkland Islands, in 1986-7, the economy was still a simple one. With no air connection with the South American continent, tourism was negligible (the only alternative being an expensive Royal Air Force charter from Brize Norton (Oxfordshire) that refueled at Ascension Island, a story in its own right that I’ll tell another time). By the end of my stay, the British government had only recently declared a fishing conservation zone around the Falklands, so their squid-fueled prosperity of the past quarter-century was only a matter for speculation.

What there was, was wool, the backbone of the economy for more than a century, though some things had changed since the 1982 South Atlantic War between Britain and Argentina. Land reform had resulted in smaller owner-occupied farms supplanting the mostly absentee-owned ranches that had dominated the Islands’ economy and politics beyond living memory but, in the near absence of roads even on East Falkland, the coastal freighter Monsunen still collected nearly all the wool clip. Some of these trips required week-long voyages to West Falkland, also visiting smaller offshore islands such as Saunders and Sea Lion (pictured above).

While families now ran most of the farms, they could not do it entirely on their own, especially during the spring shearing season. That meant hiring shearing gangs, flown from Stanley to the farms on FIGAS, often spending several days in what was well-paid but back-breaking labor. Working from 6 a.m. to 6 p.m. or so, with breakfast, lunch and smoko (tea breaks), an individual could shear upwards of 300 animals per day. It’s a young man’s job, and I have seen some old shearers who appear unable to stand up straight; as the photograph above shows, most shearing sheds now provide mechanical support that was not available then (for what it’s worth, a few women do shear, but not normally professionally).

Still, it’s a skilled occupation that often provides its practitioners a chance to travel the world – shearers are always in demand - and even compete with others. In March, several Islanders placed highly in New Zealand’s Golden Shears shearing and wool handling championships, with the team of Evan Jones and Lee Molkenbuhr placing fifth, behind New Zealand, Scotland, Wales and Australia, among 23 countries participating.

Falklands Tourism Awards

Meanwhile, according to Montevideo-based Mercopress, the Falkland Islands Tourist Board recently presented a series of awards to local operators who have contributed to industry’s increasing success. Expected to become an annual event, the awards included a “Taste of the Falklands” prize to Malvina House Hotel for its outstanding restaurant (where I dined in my most recent trip to the Islands) and a shout-out to Kay McCallum’s B&B (where I have stayed in previous visits), notorious for its garden gnomes (pictured below), for an Outstanding Contribution to Tourism.

The Best Visitor Attraction award went to Bluff Cove Lagoons which, while I cannot criticize it harshly, I do consider it misleading. I know and like Bluff Cove's owner Kevin Kilmartin – I was his guest there long before it became a tourist attraction - but I think the award owes as much to quantity as to quality, given that its penguin colonies are most easily accessible to large numbers of cruise ship visitors. Independent travelers are likelier to prefer destinations such as Sea Lion, Saunders, Carcass (pictured below) and Bleaker Islands, which provide an opportunity to enjoy the wildlife while lodging at intimate accommodations that provide greater insight into local life.

The awards are due to become an annual event, emphasizing the quality of services available even in this very small, remote market.

From the Falklands: A 2011 Perspective

The wildlife-rich Falkland Islands get extensive coverage in my new third edition of Moon Handbooks Patagonia, which has recently appeared on the shelves. To get a further update for upcoming season, I conducted an email interview with Paul Trowell, the Falkland Islands Tourist Board’s general manager. I was particularly interested in developments for independent travelers, rather than the cruise ship passengers who constitute the bulk of the Islands’ visitors. The interview has been condensed and edited for continuity.

WBB: What is new for the Falklands this season?

PT: The Falkland Islands are going through a strong period of growth in 2010/2011, in fact forecasting a 16 percent increase in numbers. This has resulted in the creation of a new National Tourism Strategy that caters for increased infrastructure and marketing initiatives to cope with the growing demand. Unfortunately, due to confidentiality, I cannot disclose the initiatives in the plan but as soon as I can I will update you.

WBB: Are the international flights looking full for this year?

PT: I suggest contacting International Tours & Travel (se.itt@horizon.co.fk), the local LAN agents, for flights from Chile, and the Falkland Islands Company Limited (fic.travel@horizon.co.fk) for details about the [Ministry of Defence] air link from Brize Norton [the Royal Air Force’s Oxfordshire base]. At present, flights leave Brize Norton on Sunday and Wednesday. We do not have access to forward bookings for release to the public but last year’s statistics show an increase in LAN, decrease on MOD.

WBB: Are there any new accommodations this year? What does demand look like for this season? Is the oil boom affecting the availability of accommodations and other services for tourists, in Stanley and in Camp (as the countryside is known here)?

PT: There has always been a shortage in peak time, November to February. We encourage travellers if they are coming in this time to book in advance. There is an additional cottage on Bleaker Island.

Oil exploration is affecting the availability of accommodations in Stanley (pictured above), where there is a total of about 220 beds, but not in Camp, though we’re conducting some research now.

WBB:  Of all visitors to the Falklands, what is the percentage of or approximate numbers of independent travelers (as opposed to cruise ship passengers, pictured below on Stanley's tourist jetty)? What sort of contribution do they make to the local economy?

PT: The 2010/11 cruise season closed with a total of 42,000 passenger arrivals. Compared to the 2009/10, the number of cancellations has been few (only four vessels with a total of 2,659 passengers), however, the numbers are still down compared to 2009/10 when 48,359 cruise ship passengers arrived in the Falklands.

Average spend per passenger is up however, to £34.50 from £32.82 last season. This means that almost £1.4 million was spent on the Islands by cruise passengers, with 43 percent of this being spent on tours, 38 percent on shopping, and 16 percent on food and drink.

The FITB Cruise Passenger Survey showed that 50% of visitors had visited the islands before, and almost one quarter (24 percent) stated that the Falkland Islands were “essential” or “very essential” factor in their cruise itinerary decision. Over one quarter (27 percent) said that they would like to return to the islands on a land-based tour.

Land-based arrivals grew 14.8 percent, totaling 6,739, and the average spending per head increased by 20 percent (or £100) to £595 in 2010. In total for 2010/11 overall, visitor arrivals by inbound overnight tourists, cruise passengers and domestic tourists resulted in 61,563 tourists, spending £5.41 million, an 8.4 percent increase over 2009/10.

WBB: Is there an abundance of local flights?

PT: There are no problems booking FIGAS flights that we are aware of but we suggest contacting FIGAS (jross@figas.gov.fk) directly.

WBB: What percentage of independent travelers come from the United States?

PT: Thirteen percent from the USA.

WBB: Of all independent travelers, what percentage of them return to the Islands? Do you have any idea whether many cruise ship passengers return independently?

PT: Our stats from January 1, 2000, to date suggest that 13 percent of travellers are on a second visit, 2.1 percent are on a third visit, 4.1 percent are on a fourth visit and 15.1 percent have been more than four times. [On the latter stats,] you may have to contact the local shipping companies who deal direct with the cruise lines.

WBB: What are the most popular destinations in terms of visitors?

PT: We do not have this breakdown in our stats but Sea Lion Island (pictured above), Pebble Island, Carcass Island, Saunders Island, and Bleaker Island (pictured below) would all rank highly.

Moon Patagonia – On the Road Again!

Well, just down the road, really. Earlier this month, an attack of bronchitis caused me to postpone an appearance at REI Fremont, 43962 Fremont Blvd., Fremont, CA 94538, tel. 510/651-0305. We have rescheduled the event for tonight, November 29, at 7 p.m. It’s free of charge, but this is a small venue, so attendees should make reservations online or by telephone with REI.

Wednesday Wrap-up: Punta Arenas, FIGAS, Porvenir & Santiago

Today’s post is a potpourri of items from my last several days in the Falkland Islands, Punta Arenas and vicinity, and Santiago.

Summertime Snowfall
It’s almost summer in the southern hemisphere, but from Monday’s weather in Punta Arenas, you’d hardly know it - as I was walking around the city, correcting the city map for the upcoming third edition of Moon Handbooks Patagonia, I encountered chill winds and several snow flurries, of all things. Admittedly, the flakes melted by the time they hit the ground, but it was still something out of the ordinary even in southern Patagonia’s notoriously changeable springtime weather. I could only imagine what hikers might be going through in Torres del Paine, which can get rougher weather than this city on the Strait of Magellan.

In the evening, though, I managed to shake off the cool day at dinner with my friend Steve Beldham, a Brit whom I met in the Falklands more than 20 years ago, at Damiana Elena (pictured above) - widely considered the city’s top restaurant. In a classic century-old house, Damiana Elena is simultaneously spacious and intimate, consisting of several small dining rooms - ideal for a romantic dinner. My own entrée of cannelloni stuffed with scallops and palm hearts was spectacular; the only minor complaint was the dessert of white chocolate mousse, which could have been lighter. Among last night’s diners was city mayor Vladimiro Mimica (who, like many local residents, is of Croatian descent).

FIGAS: the World's Friendliest Airline?
The other day my post on the Falklands described getting around the Islands, but it didn’t really address my affection for what I consider my favorite airline. At one time, flying anywhere was fun but, given the security hysteria of the past decade, commercial aviation is more stressful than anything else. On FIGAS flights from Stanley to the outer islands, such as Carcass and Bleaker, there are no full body scans and, if you want to take a bottle of water on board, it’s not big deal. Not only that but, if you’re lucky, you get to sit alongside a pilot like Eddie Anderson who, over the headphones, describes every feature of the landscape he’s overflown hundreds if not thousands of times. Eddie, a devoted conservationist, owns several small Falkland Sound islands that are home to the world’s largest concentration of southern giant petrels (rather homely birds that, however, are graceful in flight).

At the same time, FIGAS is a social, and sociable, experience. With only a week in the Islands, it was impossible for me to revisit every place and person I know from my time there but, as the flights make multiple stops en route, it’s often possible to say hello to people you can’t pay a longer visit to. En route to Carcass Island, for instance, we dropped several tourists at Saunders Island, where I was at least able to greet David and Suzan Pole-Evans when they came to pick up their guests (though not without a mild admonition that “You’re not visiting us this time, then?”).

Sunday in “The Future”
Punta Arenas is virtually dead on Sundays but it’s a great day to visit the Tierra del Fuego town of Porvenir, about 2-1/2 hours east by Transbordadora Austral Broom’s new ferry Crux Australis. Sunday’s trip, which leaves at 9:30 a.m. and returns at 5 p.m., allows visitors to spend most of the day in Porvenir, and many locals take advantage of it to visit their families. I don't have family there, obviously, but I took advantage of the schedule to lunch on conger eel in a scallop sauce at the Club Croata, the Croatian club that’s the best restaurant in town.

Porvenir, for what it’s worth, means “the future,” but a town with barely 5,000 inhabitants has its limitations. For those curious about the Falklands, in many ways it resembles Stanley - an elongated town along a sheltered harbor, with many landmark houses of Georgian and Victorian style, a central plaza studded with topiary cypresses, and a good museum that’s due to move to new quarters next year. If you find yourself in Punta Arenas on a quiet Sunday, this is one of best excursions you can take.

Metro Goes on Strike

Meanwhile, when I returned to truly summery Santiago yesterday afternoon, it was a city whose extensive Metro system has gone on strike - or at least its operators have done so. In a city whose subway is one of the world’s most automated systems, people I spoke with here have told me that the effect has been minimal but, if the strike lasts until Sunday, there will be no service on that day. That could affect people who want to get around to visit friends and family for their Sunday lunch or barbecue - a tradition that fills the time from early afternoon to at least early evening - but it won’t stop people from getting to work on Monday.

Argentine and Chilean Coastlines Rate Highly

Annually, National Geographic Traveler magazine (for whom I write occasionally) produces an annual survey of “destinations rated” and, in the new November-December issue, this year’s list evaluates the “world’s great islands, beaches and coastlines.” In a print magazine, of course, there’s not room for much more than a list of all 99 places - Newfoundland’s Avalon Peninsula comes in first - but the online version goes into more detail.

I was pleased to read that two Southern Cone destinations - the Chilean fjords (No. 4, pictured above) and Argentina’s Península Valdés (No. 10) made the top ten of places “In excellent shape, relatively unspoiled, and likely to remain so.” Chile’s Viña del Mar (No. 56) made the mid-list as “a mixed bag of successes and worries, with the future at risk.”

In fact, there are two sets of Chilean fjords. One lies along the west coast, where Navimag passenger ferries between Puerto Montt and Puerto Natales make occasional incursions from the inland sea of the Aisén and Magallanes regions to the edge of the Southern Patagonian Icefield, and the Skorpios cruise line visits Parque Nacional Laguna San Rafael and offers a longer tour of the continental glaciers.

In this case, though the article doesn’t make it clear from the beginning, the fjords in question are those on the south side of the Isla Grande de Tierra del Fuego, visited only by the relatively small vessels of the Cruceros Australis line. Traditionally, their Mare Australis and Via Australis vessels (carrying about 120 passengers each) shuttle between the Chilean city of Punta Arenas and the Argentine port of Ushuaia; this season, they will be adding the Stella Australis, capable of carrying about 200 passengers with greater amenities, to the fleet.

This, of course, contrasts with huge cruise ships that carry thousands of passengers and are, fortunately, incapable of navigating the narrow glacial channels in question here. According to one of Traveler’s anonymous panelists, “Local officials are aware of the damage cruise-ship operators have done elsewhere and working to create a sustainable tourism strategy.” Cruceros, for its part, has created an elaborate statement of its own environmental goals.

Meanwhile, on the Atlantic coast of Chubut province, Argentina’s Península Valdés draws praise for facilities “that are set up in a way to minimize their impact on the local environment.” The anonymous commentators, though, differ in their assessments: One dissents that “Development is relatively unregulated” and, from personal experience, I would say that the growth of the gateway town of Puerto Pirámides (pictured above) is cause for some concern.

Península Valdés, like most of Argentina’s Atlantic coast, is a desert, with no surface streams and an annual rainfall of only 246 mm (less than ten inches). Over two decades and at least half a dozen visits to the reserve, I have seen Puerto Pirámides expand from a oversized fish camp to a substantial village, with many more hotels and restaurants, that depends on groundwater for its existence. Some of those hotels, such as the Hostería Ecológica del Nómade, are designed to limit their environmental impact, but the town’s growth is nevertheless a serious concern.

That happened a long time ago in Viña del Mar (pictured above), Chile’s traditional seaside resort, whose proximity to the capital city of Santiago ensures an invasion of tourists not just in summer but year-round on weekends. According to Traveler, “overbuilding has damaged the ecology of its beaches, and peak season crowds and traffic are poorly handled.” For my part, I prefer the neighboring city of Valparaíso, with its quirky geography and colorful hills neighborhoods.

One other coastal destination caught my attention in this month’s Traveler, but it’s not part of the ratings game. A photo gallery on animal migrations includes a nesting colony of black-browed albatrosses - to my mind, one of the world’s most beautiful birds - in the Falkland Islands. I’ve been to several albatross colonies there, most notably on Saunders Island (pictured above), but I don’t recognize the one in the Traveler photograph; from the topography, my guess is that it’s remote, hard-to-reach Steeple Jason Island.

South Atlantic Design: Posted from Stanley

As a young boy, one of the things that attracted me to geography, and travel, was postage stamps - I was an enthusiastic collector. I was never particularly systematic about collecting, but the illustrations of foreign landscapes, peoples and wildlife instilled a curiosity that survived into adulthood. One placed that intrigued me - though its stamps were so rare that I only saw them in catalogues - was the Falkland Islands, in the remote South Atlantic ocean.

Falkland postage stamps have long been at a premium, because authorities have always issued them in relatively small quantities, so they preserve their value. At one time, postage stamps comprised one of the Islands’ main sources of revenue, though that has long been eclipsed by more lucrative pursuits, particularly fishing.

Commemorative issues almost always deal with local history, landscapes, and wildlife - the stamp depicted above, for instance, illustrates the ruins of Port Egmont, the first British settlement on westerly Saunders Island, established in 1765. In fact, the only non-local figure consistently on Falklands stamps is Queen Elizabeth II, who always appears in silhouette and occasionally in her own commemorative set.

Whenever cruise ships steam into Stanley, in fact, one of the most popular attractions is the Stanley Post Office and its Philatelic Bureau, from whose website it will soon be possible to purchase stamps directly without visiting the Islands. At the same time, the Bureau continues to promote its stamps abroad, as it did in May’s London Festival of Stamps.

What’s really interesting about Falklands stamps, though, is that the government often contracts local rather than overseas artists to design its stamps. Despite a population of only a few thousand, the Islands can boast many talented painters and illustrators. James Peck (pictured above in his Stanley studio), for instance, has done a series on the history of sheep farming, while Tony Chater has contributed a series on scenic landforms of small offshore islands and one on albatrosses, among others. Ian Strange, a naturalist who has contributed to many issues, has recently joined forces with his daughter Georgina to portray the Islands’ seasonal landscapes. Together, all these locals have helped create a memorable philatelic heritage.

Southern Oceans Travel: Antarctica & the Falklands, 2010 and Beyond

According to Montevideo-based Mercopress Noticias, big cruise ships may not be long for the Antarctic. Many but not all of the mega-cruisers, which can carry thousands of passengers at a time on routes around Cape Horn from Brazil or Buenos Aires to Valparaíso, detour to Antarctica. But because of their size and limited vulnerability, they are unable to make any landings on the frozen continent, its islands, or the Antarctic Peninsula - in effect, they are nothing more than iceberg sight-seeing photo opportunities.

The problem with the cruisers, though, is neither their size nor their shortcomings in getting to learn something about Antarctica - at least not directly so. Rather, the problem is the heavy diesel fuel - banned by the International Maritime Organization (IMO) since Gap Adventures’ M/S Explorer sank in 2007 - that they require for powering their engines. Under new regulations due to take effect before the 2011-2012 season, vessels will not even be allowed to carry such fuel, let alone burn it, beyond 60° S latitude.

The lighter fuel, meanwhile, is more expensive than the heavy fuel. Some cruise lines have already announced their intention to leave the Antarctic market, and according to the International Association of Antarctic Tour Operators (IAATO), the number of passengers aboard oversize vessels (of more than 500 passengers) will fall from more than 14,000 passengers in the upcoming season to fewer than 7,000 when the regulations take effect.

Fortunately, there are far better Antarctic opportunities on smaller vessels, such as the Grigoriiy Mikheev (pictured here), which use the lighter fuel, mostly sail from the Argentine port of Ushuaia, and rarely carry more than about 100 passengers. This permits them not only to approach the shoreline but also to disembark their passengers on board Zodiac rafts to view penguins, seals, and sea lions - as well as current Antarctic bases and the ruins of earlier bases - up close. At the same time, though, the new regulations mean the cost of Antarctic tourism is likely to rise. For those wishing to see Antarctica on a relative budget, the 2010-2011 season might be the time to go.

Meanwhile, to the east of the South American continent, the Falkland Islands are gearing up for the coming season with a new tourism director and a much improved Visitor Falklands website that’s much friendlier to land-based passengers than in the past. While most Falklands visitors still arrive by cruise ships and spend relatively little time on land, the best way to see the Islands and their cornucopia of sub-Antarctic wildlife is overland to locales such as Volunteer Point, or by small plane to offshore islands such as Pebble, Saunders, and Carcass. Reached by air from Punta Arenas (Chile) or from the United Kingdom via Ascension Island, the Falklands are the best place to see penguins, other seabirds (such as black-browed albatrosses, pictured here), and marine mammals without visiting Antarctica itself.

The upgraded website includes a thorough Falklands Accommodations Guide that will help land-based visitors have a better idea of what to expect here (where accommodations are mostly of a high standard, but can vary from self-catering shanties to converted ranch managers’ houses (such as Port Howard Lodge) to cozy B&Bs (such as Celia Stewart’s Bennett House, pictured above) to purpose-built hotels (Malvina House) and wildlife lodges (Sea Lion Lodge). The Islands get thorough coverage in Moon Patagonia, which I will be updating later this year.

The South Atlantic as Biography

In last week's mail, I received an invitation to the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, in London, for the book launch of the Dictionary of Falklands Biography. Unfortunately, I won't be able to make the trip, but the project should appeal to anyone interested in the South Atlantic Ocean, Patagonia, and the Falklands (known to Argentines as the Malvinas) in particular. Most of the contributors to the book's short bios are British, but there is one prominent Argentine historian and one Chilean. Some entries are autobiographical.

Lack of time and money prohibit my attending the launch, but the book deserves attention. Covering the period prior to the Argentine invasion of 1982, it's been a labor of love for former Islands Governor David Tatham, who invited me to contribute a piece on Scottish sheepfarmer John Hamilton (pictured here), who emigrated to the islands in the 1880s but spent much of his life in Chile and Argentina as well. In the mid-1980s, I had spent a year-plus in the islands on a Fulbright-Hays grant while researching my PhD dissertation in geography at the University of California, Berkeley; during that period, I did some biographical research and writing on Hamilton with materials from the local archive. While I also did some university teaching in the ensuing years, I got sidetracked into guidebook writing (which. however, has allowed me to revisit the Islands several times) and thus never published that material until now.

Hamilton is an interesting figure because he embodies the ambivalence and ambiguity of the relations between the Islands and the continent. He acquired substantial properties in Argentine Patagonia and, in 1904, he married Olivia Heap, a Scotswoman who had been a nurse at the British Hospital in Buenos Aires. His daughter Penelope later married an Argentine.

Even as his Argentine properties prospered, Hamilton kept a close watch on the Falklands and, when opportunities arose, he began to acquire property there. In 1922, for instance, he bought Beaver Island and adjacent islets; shortly thereafter he purchased Weddell Island and the Passage Islands, and then Saunders Island (pictured here) in the mid-1930s. He also owned property in Stanley.

While he lived mostly in Argentina, Hamilton was neither a speculator, nor a stereotypical absentee landlord. He took positive action to improve pastures on badly overgrazed Weddell, including stock reductions and replanting of tussac grass, and he imported coniferous trees from Punta Arenas as ornamentals and windbreaks. He also attempted to diversify the farm economy through minor industries such as seal oiling (soon abandoned) and the introduction of exotic mammals such as foxes, skunks and guanacos from the South American continent. The idea was that their pelts, as well as those of South American otters, would find overseas markets; ironically, foxes proved a plague to West Falkland farmers.

Hamilton kept much of his money locally, with more than £90,000 in Stanley's Government Savings Bank even during the 1930s Great Depression (when he donated several thousand pounds for construction of lighthouses on East and West Falkland, and improvements to King Edward Memorial Hospital). He also researched road-building in the countryside at a time when such projects were so visionary as to be almost hallucinatory.

In 1940 Hamilton moved to Buenos Aires because of a chronic eye problem and, when ongoing treatment required him to remain nearby, he purchased a stud farm at the locality of Merlo, west of the Argentine capital. He died in September 1945, survived by his daughter Penelope Alvarez.

Unfortunately, the Falklands properties became a bone of contention because of their ownership by Hamilton's Argentine heirs; while Hamilton had once attemped to move his headquarters from London to Stanley, he ran into complications with Argentina, which may have seen his properties as a foothold in the Falklands. Instead, he incorporated offshore in Jersey.

After his death, many Islanders argued for Hamilton's expropriation as part of an ambitious land reform scheme that never came to fruition. In 1987, five years after the South Atlantic War, the Hamilton estate finally sold Beaver, Weddell, Saunders and surrounding islets to local residents. In a visit to Weddell only a few months before that took place, I copied the photograph above; a few years later, Hamilton's handsome Weddell house, with its spectacular interior woodwork, burned to the ground in a chimney fire - the photograph with it.

On the Albatross

The Falkland Islands may be famous for their penguins, but the breeding colonies of black-browed albatrosses are, in my opinion, even more fascinating. In many parts of southern South America, this striking bird glides gracefully over the ocean, but only in the Falklands is it possible to appreciate its near porcelain beauty up close and personal. The first time ever I visited Saunders Island, in the northwestern sector of the archipelago, I sat near a steeply sloping breeding colony near The Neck, the sandy isthmus that links the eastern and western sectors of the island; I marveled as the birds, awkward on land, waddled within range of the normal 50mm lens on my SLR. The resulting photograph, though, was so perfect that some people have thought it was a taxidermy shot.

This time, though, I spent several hours shooting the birds at the Rookery Mountain site, and the closeups of breeding pairs preening each other should prove that these birds are not just stunningly beautiful, but that they are startlingly alive.

I've just flown from the Islands back to Punta Arenas, Chile, so this may be my last post on them for a while. For now, I'll continue to wonder why so many people who marvel at the approachability of wildlife in the Everglades and Galápagos continue to overlook the Falklands.