Today we planned a boat trip to Kidney Island north of Stanley although this would be late in the day: the island's main attraction is seeing thousands of Sooty Shearwaters - Black slender winged sea birds - massing off the shore at dusk before heading to their nests on the island for the night.
Until then I had time to relax alone: Emma was working at Bluff Cove and Nigel was taking his sister and nephew to join her. I read in the conservatory, walked the dog and pottered in the kitchen before walking to the museum in town. It was obvious that a cruise ship was in: as I approached town a large number of people were milling around and I could hear any number of languages.
The museum was an eclectic mix of things Falklands: discovery, maritime and social history and natural history were all covered by lengthy narrative and an excess of exhibits. For me however the most interesting part was a visit to an original Stanley house from 1849. I walked there with one of the museum guides, just the two of us since either no one else knew of it or else didn’t want to bother. The house sits on the slopes a few streets back from the water and was one of a handful sent over in kit form with some pensioned army families in an attempt to populate the islands. A small two up two down house, it was surprisingly high ceilinged and seemed spacious for one family for the time considering the housing available to workers in industrial cities back home.
The day slipped by and the time to go to Kidney Island arrived. Sandwiches packed, we headed to the public jetty where the last few stragglers from the cruise ship were awaiting the final tender of the day. Nine of us boarded our boat, large enough to accommodate all of us under cover, and headed out into the harbour. Thirty minutes later we arrived at the island and were dropped off on a narrow sandy beach to explore.
Kidney Island is long and narrow and covered in tussock grass. Its tough long leaves grow up to six feet high from large root bowls. The leaves largely obscure your view of anything in front and behind you and down to your boots unless you sweep them aside; you have to feel your way forward with your feet, trying to avoid the nest holes of the shearwaters burrowed in the ground. In this manner we picked our way slowly uphill from the beach and to the other side of the island.
After enjoying views from high up on the rocky north side of Kidney Island - rockhopper penguins with fat chicks on exposed outcrops, the sweeping panorama across the waters of a wide sound to the far hills of East Falkland - we headed back to the beach for the arrival of the Shearwaters. Seals bobbed slowly in the evening-calm waters, a sea lion basked lazily further along the beach and a quietness was settling across the island. We passed an hour on the beach enjoying the peace as the dipping sun marked its departure with an orange strip across sea and sky, sandwiching the horizon, while an ever increasing number of small black shapes darted across the purple dusk. The flapping Shearwaters slowly massed and although never a dense swarm the increasing numbers filled our field of view as they criss-crossed each other, swooping low over the water and the beach and at times our heads. For a while they circled around us until, at a point that only the birds and nature understood, small numbers started to break away from the rest and dart inland towards their nests.
It was well past nine as the last of the Shearwaters broke away from the remains of the mass. As they headed inland to their nests we boarded the tender to take us back to the boat, a thirty minute trip to Stanley and our own beds for the night.
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