Trip Report Falkland Islands

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opisthobranch

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Location
Sunnyvale, CA
# of dives
Last month I had the privilege of spending 2 weeks on Pelagic Australis diving the Falkland Islands.

Falkland Islands

It's adventure/expedition diving and we only managed 9 dives so I'm not yet willing to offer a definitive take on the diving. But that said, what we found was very good. Lots of friendly dolphins and sea lions in beautiful kelp forests. Not many fish and we didn't find any amazing walls or pinnacles like in BC or Alaska. But I definitely feel it's a place worth exploring further. Also the topside wildlife viewing is superb.

Clinton
 
Well, some lowlifes hacked the front page of my website. Serves me right for using Wordpress I guess. Anyway while I sort that out you can see my Falklands pictures here:

Falkland Islands 2017

Sorry for any inconvenience.

Clinton
 
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Those Commerson's dolphins & a Peale's dolphin were colors/patterns I've never seen; quite striking.

What led you to go all the way to the Falklands?

9 Dives in 2 weeks? How many dives did you try for? What, if anything, limited the amount of diving you got to do?

Can you tell us more about the Pelagic Australis boat? Is it a live-aboard, a 'charter it and do what you want' vessel, or what?

Richard.
 
So I wanted to go someplace different. My friend Justin has worked as a guide on various boats in the Southern Hemisphere and convinced me that the Falklands needed more exploration. It still does. Outside of the dolphins we didn't see anything that quite matches BC or SE Alaska but that doesn't mean it isn't there. It easily could be. And what we did see was still cool. Very pretty kelp forest, sea lions, interesting inverts, etc. Part of the reason we only did 9 scuba dives was the presence of the dolphins. They came right to the boat at nearly every anchorage so we spent many hours snorkeling with them instead of diving. Also there are loads of opportunities for nature watching on land. Finally, it's really windy there and so that limited us a bit too.

Pelagic Australis is a lovely boat. Not really a dive boat so much as an expedition yacht that happens to have a compressor. It would be a bit crowded for more than 4 divers but we only had 2 on this trip so it worked out. Justin and I were basically doing our own thing for diving. Sometimes it's good to spend some time looking at charts and saying, I dunno, what about here?

I definitely want to go back.

Clinton
 
The Falklands have so much to see above water that as a caribbean warm water wuss we did not even consider going in the water (never mind Antarctica). We spent 3 days in the Falklands as part of an antarctic expedition cruise.

one of the most interesting aspects of the trip was having a pair of history lectures on the Falkland war presented on successive days. Day 1 was Argentinian. Day 2 was British. Same presentor, same facts, very different perspective.

On land: Albatros and penguins. Inches away. But way too cold...
 
I guest lectured on cruise ships to the Antarctic Peninsula and we'd have stops in the Falklands, but never had the opportunity to put together a dive there. One of my lectures was on Falkland Islands shipwrecks, there is even a pretty cool map sold there with many of them listed on it. Great people and great history there. Now the goal is to return at some point for a longer stay and experience some diving.
 

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