Falkland Islands - Las Malvinas

FALKLAND ISLANDS - LAS MALVINAS

PORT STANLEY Stopover (Cancelled)

Friday 23rd March 2012

During the night the seas had gotten rougher and after getting up early to see the ship sail into PORT STANLEY harbour and anchor, we could see almost immediately that the weather and sea conditions were not being so kind. 

Lights were visible on the horizon from the cabin, which was obviously the coastline of the Falkland Islands, so we were nearby and as it got light we could see some of the hills on the island rising up in the distance and took these couple of photographs.  

But, after checking on the special TV Channel dedicated to information about the position of the ship and the weather conditions, we could see that in fact although we were just 1.4 kilometres from PORT STANLEY, that was as close as we were going to get. 

Some moments later an announcement was made by Captain Frank van der Hoeven that regrettably, We were actually in a "Beaufort Force 10 Gale" with winds reaching speeds of over 100 kilometres (70 miles) an hour and that the ship, because of this, was actually sailing passed PORT STANLEY.

Although Captain Frank van der Hoeven had been monitoring the situation for the last 6 days, the weather and sea conditions could not be predicted. He tried very hard to take the ship into PORT STANLEY harbour that morning on two occasions, but he could just not do it, without putting the safety of the ship and all the passenger and crew on board at risk. Which he was not, understandable prepared to do.

Also, due to fact that the deteriorating weather conditions, which were not forecasted to get any better as the day went on either, and there were already some other ships, either adrift or archored in the harbour, making it too dangerous, he was regrettably, cancelling the stopover to PORT STANLEY and the FALKLAND ISLANDS, much to everyone's disappointment.

This would mean another day at sea, slowly heading for the southern most tip of the South America continent and CAPE HORN on Horn Island.