Friday, February 3. Falklands Tomorrow...

Cloudy and still cool.

Today was a full day of sailing due north from Antarctica to the British Territory of a group of 760 islands some 300 miles out in the Atlantic off the tip of South America. We arrive there in the early morning hours, hopefully with good weather as we get ashore by tender. 

There were a few talks of interest today, I attended only two of them as I seem to be terribly tired for some reason. One of the reasons is, I think, that we do not use the elevator so we end up climbing a heck of a lot of stairs. We are on the 12 floor and the promenade is on seven, that means five flights down, and up. We also are up and down four flights just to attend a lecture and the dining room is also a five flight trip. Another reason is that Fellette is trying to walk an hour a day, that comes to maybe two or three miles on sea days. 

I usually accompany her on a portion of the walk and that is something I do not do at home: deliberately go for a brisk walk. My day is usually spent constantly walking and working while either in the garden, workshop or around and about. I don't think I can use 'my recovery' as a reason for my sleepiness but I think that it fits into the overall tiredness I have. My legs are definitely suffering a bit on this trip. The motion of the ship is also conducive to sleepiness.

We are looking forward to the Falklands. We are on a different tour than the Cutler's tomorrow, they are going in search of penguins, we are doing a battlefield tour of the Argentine/British scrap in the 80's when about 1000 men died over this desolate island that has a population of 3248 souls now. It is about the size of Wales with two main large islands and only 11 of the 760 are inhabited. It is a fairly blustery place apparently.

There are no trees on the island except those planted by settlers, the weather is always cool, 20 inches of rain a year and wool is the main source of income and now, tourism is starting to be a factor.

I find it interesting that the Falklands are on about the same latitude as we are at home, only in the Southern Hemisphere, yet, there is no comparison at all in climate and vegetation, we are by far, warmer. 

No pics today, nothing but ocean today.