Calm Like a Bomb

Another beautiful morning in Port Stanley starts with light scrubbing, then some ropework to prepare for an unfavourable wind around our mooring.

By midday, Steve and I are off on a walk to a lighthouse for some scenery and the hope of catching the last of the penguins or sea lions. This takes us past several rusty old wrecks, then across a field that's clearly sign posted “...believed to be clear of mines...”. Our local friends seem unperturbed by these explosive relics, so we march across with a second thought, but not a third. We come to an uninhabited snow-white sand beach and rolling waves. Beaches don't hold my attention for long and this pristine example is no exception.

We reach the lighthouse with a penguin count of zero. Past the lighthouse, we hopefully scramble over coastal rocks toward a group of fat, listless, black and white creatures that we can't precisely identify. We're ten feet away before agreeing these are just more lazy, ten-a-penny Cormorants. I've seen tens and tens of penguins in the water, but the crux of their novelty is how they waddle around on land, which has thus far eluded me.

Farther on, there's more hope as Steve points me to the ground where a pair of penguin flippers lies, but only attached to a penguin skeleton. Thirty minutes of coast later and still no penguins. Just more useless pretty beaches.

Finally, we spot a pair of the elusive little turds. Unfortunately, they're on a beach fenced of and signposted with red square featuring a mine and a one-legged stick man.

Photo: Yahoo! News

In the later stages of this five or six hour walk, we get to see something better than penguins. Two Land Rover Defenders in their natural habitat, making light work of a scenic wide, flat and lumpy green landscape.