We leave the port of Stanley on Tuesday, October 10th in late morning,
heading for the West Islands of the Falkland archipelago. The South wind
blows at 30 knots, and this coastal navigation allows us to
quickly cover the 140 miles to Saunders Island, in rather
comfortable conditions. We anchor at dawn in front of the family
farm. The weather is rainy, and we are very happy to be
invited to Betty's for tea. We weigh anchor the next day
for Dunbar, where the very welcoming owners await us. Marie-
Paule and Hugues, a French couple settled here for about ten
years, share the activities of their 4000-head livestock farm with us
moutons. C'est le printemps ici et entre les poussins et les agneaux les
filles sont aux anges, d'autant que certains ont perdus leur maman dans
les troupeaux et qu'il faut les nourrir au biberon... Les ballades
up to the beautiful beach of Stevelly Bay, where several colonies of
penguins live, which are very pleasant, and we return with some penguin
eggs for lunch. It is indeed allowed to take the eggs
tant qu'il n'y en a encore qu'un ; la femelle pond habituellement deux
eggs, and she will lay two if the first is removed before she lays
the second, so there is no impact on reproduction due to our
greediness! Diane is convinced she is eating a carrot omelet, so much
do these eggs give an orange color, and the taste is otherwise quite
similar to that of chicken eggs. Yesterday, the annual sheep shearing began
and with almost 500 sheep per day for two shearers,
there's no downtime in the barn! The wind is blowing hard, but we are well
protected in this pleasant little lagoon, which we plan to leave as soon as the
wind turns North, Monsieur Jerôme Poncet is waiting for us at Beaver Island ;-)