Christmas in the Falkland Islands

I hope everybody had a jolly ol Christmas. For me it was spent in the Falkland Island, well the 24th was spent in the Falklands and actual Christmas was spent at sea enroute to South Georgia Island where we arrive early tomorrow morning. I was lucky enough that my work breaks fitted in with the landings and was able to get onto the islands. The first landing was at Shetland Island (sorry for spelling) which is home to 140,000 penguins, all kinds, rock hoppers and king emperor penguins etc, and sheep! I felt like I was back at home with the sheep and the rolling grassed hills falling away into the ocean.

Another landing was at Stanley, the main town in the Falkland’s. You probably have heard of the Falklands due to the Falklands war in the early 80’s between Argentina and England. Stanley is the only town on the island with a population of about 2000, a slice of England on the coast of South America, the pound is the currency and every second vehicle is a land rover and there are plenty of cake shops.

I had an hour and half off the ship, so I had a wander around. Then when all the Filipino crew were heading to the church to make confession, I decided that an hour and half wasn’t long enough for my confession so I made a bee line for the first smoky clapped out English pub I could find. The old pub with the horses and clothes line in the front yard fitted the bill, the cheesy Christmas carols on the local radio was a slice of heaven, an oasis away from the “yes sir, yes madam” world. It was a place I could sit down have a beer and a burger and write a little Christmas blog to you my blog readers.

So the above was the 24th, and Christmas day was a memorable one, not the best Christmas I have had as working a isn’t my idea of fun and I’m sure even Santa Claus must get annoyed having to work Christmas. But hey it was a memorable one none the less, in the middle of the ocean living the dream!

I was warmly greeted Christmas morning in the crew mess as I inhaled my cornflakes with a jolly “lets go, quick quick, we start work in 2 minutes”. It was like any other day really, except I was saying “merry Christmas madam/sir” and I had to sing Christmas carols! I’m quite enjoying this cruise as we have a good bunch of passengers on board, quite a few Ozzies and even a couple from my home town in New Zealand!.

Then after the 13 hours of festive work, the crew let their hair down (can I still say that now that I don’t have long hair?), there was an open bar and plenty of swaying and dancing on the dance floor. There was even a little strip dance from the Galley boys (pictured below), the Filipino’s definitely know how to have a good time. It’s quite funny trying to dance with the rolling motion of the boat, and then add a couple of beers to that it can get quite interesting.

Ok, pictures speak louder than words, so I will let the photos from my landing at Shetland Island do the talking as I’m writing too much and have to be up in 4 hours to start work at 4am.Looks like a .14 hour day tomorrow, I’m living the dream yo!