Bottom of the World – Port Stanley, Falkland Islands – [01/28/2012]

By something that feels like nothing short of a miracle we made it into Port Stanley today. With the ship being in code red health procedures (still, after four days), and the weather being rough it was very much a shot in the dark whether we were going to make landfall in this tiny windswept port. Looking out from the library window you can just barely make out the large cluster of buildings that is the city resting a lengthly tender ride away. It seems to perch on the near-barren ground, as if it had been dropped there rather than built.

This is the last stop before we enter the great white expanse of Antarctica. We are, at this moment, very near the bottom of the world.

Far from the crystal aquamarine of the Caribbean or even the deep reflective blue of Alaska, the water here is slate grey, capped with froths of white that come out of nowhere. This is a hard land. And that’s just from looking at it.

Weather like this most of us break out the scarves and the uniform issue huge orange poof-jackets that make us look like oversized marshmallows, but at least keep us warm. It’s also when I begin to curse the fact that I somehow forgot to pack my gloves. You would think that, knowing that I was likely coming to the South Pole, I would have remembered to pack gloves. I did no such thing.

Once you take the tender ride over the place the first thing that hits you is the wind – crying in from the west over the grey-silver slate of the water, and carrying with it the tang of salt and seaweed on rocky beaches. While others were shivering and wishing they’d brought more layers, I took one deep cleansing breath and felt all the cobwebs fly out of my mind. Gone I have been privileged enough to see many, many ports, many that could lay valid claim to being far more beautiful than this windswept wooden town that clings to the edges of the watery pathway to Antarctica – I live with the scent of salt in my nostrils, but not one of those places, no matter how beautiful, ever, has carried a scent so much like home to me on the wind.

Port Stanley was like a combination of being home in Canada and being home in Hertfordshire. Everything is priced in British pounds, and the grocery stores carry concentrated cordial and tea biscuits alongside their flour and unrefrigerated eggs. It was a double trip down memory lane for me walking down those aisles, as I kept seeing so many things that I nearly lived on while I was in the UK. Yet when I stepped back out into the street the smell of the wind once again swept me back to Canada.

Drifting past the souvenir shops that crouch along the main street with their wares of adorable stuffed penguins and penguin adorned shot glasses (you name it, it was available with a penguin on it), you eventually find yourself in front of the cathedral. The art historian in me can never pass up a cathedral, and this was no different. Each church I visit has its own voice, and this one spoke of solitude and smelled of fresh polished wood, only the lower half of the inside of it is stone, the rest is all wood reaching up to the carved ceiling. And it’s tiny, as befits a town where the population is probably less than that of the average cruise ship.  Across from the church is the area called Victory Green, decorated by cannons that have long since ceased to fire, and a huge timber that was once the mizzen mast of the tall ship Great Britain, that lay derelict in the harbor for nearly 20 years before finally being resurrected and sent home where she belonged. They left the mizzen mast with Port Stanley as a thank you for taking care of her (such as they did) for all those years.

It’s cold here of course, that wind is not kind, but not so cold that the marshmallow jackets are as yet a requirement. Soon though, soon I’m sure, I’m going to regret having not packed those gloves.