West Point, Falkland Islands
Trip Start
Feb 03, 2006
1
13
59
Trip End
May 09, 2006
West Point, Falkland Islands,
Argentina
Monday, February 13, 2006
Coordinates: 51d 19.86m S, 60d 39.38m W
MILES: flying 8517, bus 22, taxi 33, walking 16, ship 1816, Zodiac boat 12 total: 10,416 miles
Arrived at the Falkland Islands today under sunny skies. We anchored off of West Point Island, which has a population of 4. We were ferried from the ship to the shore, and walked across the island to a colony of Rockhopper penguins and Albatross. The family of 4 treated us (all 500 of us) to tea and cakes at their little home (which somehow, out in the middle of nowhere, has internet!).
The Falklands are famous for the war, a short war, which took place in 1988. The Argentinians attempted to take the islands by force from the British, and occupied the island with 30,000 troops, and lots of ships. The British, however, were not impressed, and with superior forces, took the islands back in short order, with several hundred casualties on both sides, however. The people from Britain that I talked to felt that if the Argentinian government had just asked, Britain probably would have given them the islands....
The Falklands also had an important naval battle in the first world war. Germany tried to capture these islands, but Britain had a group of naval ships there first, by only a few days. Germany lost 6 out of their seven ships in the battle, and lost control of the south Atlantic.
