Stopover in Stanley, Falkland Islands

Date: 4 March 2004

Day: 224, (This Leg Day 42)

Local time: 1200 GMT-4

Leg Number and name: Leg 5, 'The Royal'

Focus of leg: Mitigation and protection of Albatross breeding colonies

Position relative to land: On the public jetty, Port Stanley. Falkland Islands

Distance travelled in last 24hrs: 16

Distance sailed this Leg: 5007nm

Total distance from Ardmore: 20,254 miles

Next Port: Horta, Azores



Notes: Port Stanley is a frontier town of some 1,500 friendly souls. Everyone is welcoming and supportive of the Save the Albatross Campaign. The brave team at Falkland Conservation has been very successful in spreading the message of conservation . They deserve the highest praise. Indeed the people of the Falklands are very conservation minded. We spent the day sorting ourselves out at the Public Pier and getting set for the programme Falkland Conservation has arranged for us.



This is day 243 and it has been a long haul. Sadly, at the moment I do feel at little nearer seventy than sixty. Perhaps meeting all the costs and having no insurance adds to the strain. I'm sure a couple of days will see us getting used to normal life. Like so many others I have always found travelling hopefully rather easier than arriving.



We were sorry to see Francois depart for Rio de Janeiro on a French boat this morning. He has been a great hand but half his longed for "Year off" still remains and now he needs to meet up with his daughter in South America before returning to France and his new life, with all three of his children having left his single-parent nest.



Into the mist......



John Ridgway

Date: 5 March 2004


Day: 225,


Local time: 1200 GMT-3




Notes: Still at the pier. Though if the wind turns to the east we will be in trouble. Usual thing, always something. The
great thing about the old croft house under the hill at Ardmore, with stone walls 4 ft thick, is that it is unlikely to blow
away in the night. It can blow a blizzard outside but our bed remains still. I must be getting jumpy. I woke up this morning
and found I am nearly sixty-six, surely that can't be true, I'm eighteen. What's happening?



We have been going 224 days now, for the albatross. I've thought of little else, there's been a lot of sea, we are completely out of touch with world news.



My aim is to prevent the needless slaughter of the albatross. That is my aim.



We've visited Cape Town, Kerguelen, Melbourne, Wellington and now the Falklands. We've been treated differently in each place. But it's the same poor old bird flying around the world, past all those places. And it is quite rapidly dwindling to extinction.



As a private individual, beholden to no-one, after all these 224 days I realise I am forming a view for the old bird which
is, unsurprisingly, the old Right way, Wrong way, Ridgway. Of course I stand to be criticised for it by the different
interests, but that is only a bit more discomfort. Discomfort is what I do isn't it? And I haven't even got a job to lose, have I?



Into the mist......



John Ridgway

Date: 6 March 2004

Day: 226,


Notes: A wild west gale of a day.




Because of its fishing licences, Port Stanley may be, per capita, the richest country on the planet, but it can be pretty interesting too, bouncing on the end of one of many broken piers without a washing machine or a shower. Each pier seems to have a sunken wreck at the end of it, I don't want to be next.




Many people come to the boat. Among them, one of my heroes: a Frenchman, Jerome Poncet who I haven't seen for ten years. Jerome is one of that small band of hardy skippers who have made a living over very many years, sailing to South Georgia and the Antarctic, with people seeking adventure. "Welcome aboard" he grins wolfishly from under wild black hair and bushy moustache, at the start of each voyage "whether we live, or whether we die."




He tells me about South Georgia nowadays, about the increasing number of hooks he finds in albatrosses, both dead and alive.




Marie Christine and I walk down to the Memorial to the 1982 Conflict between Britain and Argentina. I used to be in 3 Para, many years ago. Looking at the list of the dead I wonder if I could have coped.




Into the mist......




John Ridgway

Date: 7 March 2004

Day: 227



Notes: A quiet day at the pier. Catching up with things. We are pretty much ready to sail. Marie Christine and I went to church in the morning.



While MC visited the Market Garden with Margery McPhee, I drove out to see Jerome Poncet's Golden Fleece, which is a very
warm ship I'm pleased to see. Nick and I looked at the the rusting hulk of the Lady Elizabeth and visited an abandoned North
Sea herring drifter which came out from Lowestoft in 1949 to start a sealing operation. Then we saw a harpoon which had
killed 20,000 whales in South Georgia. How things have changed.



Into the mist......



John Ridgway

Date: 8 March 2004

Day: 228



Notes: Before I say anything on the local radio about Falkland Islands
Fisheries and albatrosses, Marie Christine thought it best we should listen
to some local experts first. Makes sense doesn't it?



Accordingly, Marie Christine and I, together with Ben Sullivan from
Falklands Conservation, went along at 0900 to the CFL (Consolidated
Fisheries Ltd) offices in Stanley. Stuart Wallace, the Chairman, helped by
Janet Robertson, and Harry Henson, outlined their position very
clearly. It was very encouraging and I made copious notes.



Then we 3 went on to the F.I. Fisheries Department out on the F.I Passenger
Dock, where the Fisheries Director John Barton, gave a very clear Power
Point presentation, helped by Helen Otley, (Fisheries Observer), Richard
Cockwell (Councillor responsible for Fisheries) and Paul Brickhill
(Designer of the Brickhill Bird Scarer). This gave us plenty to think about.



Then, in the afternoon, I recorded a long piece for the radio.



Meanwhile under the careful eye of Marjory McPhee, the provisions list is
coming together.



We had a quiet evening at home together aboard the shippy, just the four of
us: Nick, Igor, MC and me; wondering what will become of us on the next
long Leg up to the Azores. Delicious stew of F.I. stewing steak, followed
by a bar of Cadbury's New Zealand chocolate stiffened the spirits.



Into the mist......



John Ridgway

Date: 9 March 2004

Day: 229


Notes: We four had showers at the public swimming pool at 0730. My first
since Wellington in January.



Marie Christine and I went to Government House with Ben Sullivan from
Falklands Conservation. We had an interesting meeting which gave us a greater understanding of the position of the albatross and
fishing around the Falklands and South Georgia. It is encouraging to see such an effort being made for the old bird.



Time flies, problems are still to be solved with stores and spares. We had
a very pleasant evening, first with Sally Poncet, and then a real Kelper's supper at the home of Owen and Marjorie McPhee - roast beef, Yorkshire pudding and gravy.



Unforgettable.



Into the mist......



John Ridgway

Date: 10 March 2004

Day: 230,




Notes: Rain and westerly gale. A good day for catching up down below; Marie
Christine worked steadily through the cupboards in the Galley.



Nick and I put together computerised pictures for our hour's talk in the
Parish Hall in the evening. Nick titled it "Six Decades of the Albatross with John Ridgway." Blimey! It began with my cadet-ship with Clan Line in 1956. The pictures we scanned from copies of our long-out-of date books, which have surfaced in Port Stanley.



After the talk we went on to an astonishing Paella followed by an even more
astonishing flaming dish of Chivas Regal. It is the Spanish way in the Falklands.



Into the mist......



John Ridgway

Date: 11 March 2004

Day: 231



Notes: This morning, Marie Christine and I attended the re-naming ceremony
for the Consolidated Fisheries longliner, the "CFL
Gambler": this is a beacon of hope for the Falklanders. On our "Save the Albatross circumnavigation" we have visited Cape Town and
the South African waters around Prince Edward andMarion Island; also the seas around the French islands of Crozet and Kerguelen. The Australian Heard Island EEZ was cleared by satellite sweep just as we approached the boundary. We sailed across the Australian southern shelf and the Bass Strait. We also passed through New Zealand and Chatham Island waters and on across the Southern Ocean into Chilean waters and theArgentinian section of the Patagonian shelf. after alls this it is so heartening to see the Falkland Islanders reach beyond simply collecting fishing licence money, to invest in their own fishing fleet and thus improve their chances of realising that elusive world dream: the "well-regulated and sustainable fishery", which so often in other parts of the world, has proved to be little more than a mirage. After seven months of travelling hopefully, "well regulated and sustainable fisheries" do appear to us, to be the only hope for the albatross.



After lunch we gave a talk to 150 children at the Port Stanley school.
Bright-eyed and vigorous in their world-class education facilities (financed from the sale of fishing licences to foreign
boats), these children will need to pull their full weight in these fisheries if the Falklands is to continue to provide
this elevated standard of living and not return to scratching on the margins, as in the not so distant past.



Into the mist......



John Ridgway

Date: 12 March 2004

Day: 232



Notes: Marie Christine got locked in the lavatory in the Information Centre
from 0645 ubtil 0730. This resulted in violence of stupendous proportions which quietened things down a bit over breakfast.
Nick took a lot of the heat. I made myself scarce for the morning, filming the 'CFL Gambler', while the dust settled.



We barely managed to get things done.



The reception at Government House will be a bright memory for long beyond
the end of this voyage. I wondered how would I have coped if I had been with the detachment of Royal Marines, with the place
surrounded by Argentine troops, on that day in April 1982



Probably, I suppose I'd have done just the same.



Into the mist......



John Ridgway

Now go on to the next two weeks 13-27 March 2004 as we head north to warmer weather.

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