Falklands Day 11 - Bleaker Island
December 28, 2014 to January 9, 2015
Today we arrived at the Falkland islands - our first stop in the morning was Bleaker Island. The swells and winds were really high, so we all got soaked on the zodiac ride to land! Shore was like a Caribbean beach – blue water and white sand beach - but oh...it was no tropical island. We dropped off our lifevest in a pile as usual, but kept our bags with us as it was so windy we didn’t want them to blow away. We started along a very long walk to the other side of the island - it was so weird after 11 days to see green and plant life again. It was insanely windy and then it started raining and hailing on us. Miserable!! Sideways hail into your face - can you tell how happy I look in those photos?
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Finally it stopped raining and we kept on our walk, first getting to a big overlook and then continuing on to our goal - the rockhopper penguins. They were so funny – very curious animals. I sat down for a while and watched them, mostly taking video - but got some photos as well – it was very entertaining. After almost 2 hours we started the walk back. It was still windy, but not a strong headwind like before. We detoured past this huge group of birds, and then continued to the shore. The zodiac ride back was wet, but not nearly as bad as before! In the afternoon we were supposed to go to Sea Lion island, but even despite the 40 knot winds calming down to 30 knots (which was safe for zodiac operations) once we pulled up in the bay the ship captain said there was too much kelp in the water and it was not safe to stay. We were disappointed our last excursion got canceled, but honestly - after the winds and hail earlier...I was ok not enduring that again.