Report from the Falklands by Dorothy Packer
D
uring our bumpy 35mph ride from Port Stanley to Mt. Pleasant Royal Air Force Base for our return flight to England this February, we were asked by a Stanley Councilman why we had come to the Falklands. Ralph began to recount the tales of New England sea captains who had sailed these waters and who had touched his life growing up on the Vineyard. Perhaps it was to bring those tales to life that we had started the trip with two days in Bristol, England, to see the SS Great Britain being restored in the very dry dock where she had been built in 1843. After being damaged off Cape Horn in 1886, she was sold for a storage hulk and then in 1937 was abandoned in Sparrow Cove not far from Stanley Harbor. When you stand beneath her broad iron hull, you can appreciate what a task it was to refloat her and tow her back to Bristol in 1970. In Stanley we stayed at Emma's Guesthouse right on the water and just around the corner from the Globe Hotel, the town's gathering place. We hiked the Maritime History Trail to Whalebone Cove to see if we could find the Samson, the tug that brought the Wavertree into harbor on Christmas Eve 1910 after her dismasting trying to round Cape Horn. We found the Lady Elizabeth and, inshore, the small tug Plym, but it was not until we went out in a harbor launch that we saw the Samson, wreathed in a bed of giant kelp. Historically the Falklanders have provided the means to repair and refit vessels, and the work continues even as the vessels change. A foreign squid fleet licensed to fish the Falkland waters came and went in the harbor, while near town a freight boat was loading for a circuit of the islands, providing necessities for the settlements. Otherwise, travel between the islands is by a small nine-seat Islander 16
Above, Hope Harbor on West Point Istand lies amid the rocky and naturally treeless hills. The few windtwisted gorse and yew were introduced as windbreaks for the settlement and, perhaps , a reminder of gentler climes. At right, the Lady Elizabeth has lain in Whalebone Cove since 1936.Built of iron in England in 1879, the bark carried cargo until 1913 , when she arrived in Port Stanley with a damaged hull. Below, the Lady Elizabeth's elegant, turtleback stern. Photographs are by Ralph M. Packer, Jr .
SEA HISTORY 78, SUMMER 1996