We are just about to complete a week of an “exploration trip” for kite surfing around the Falklands / Malvinas. As I summarize the week, let’s look back on the origins of this trip.
Pablo, the guide for the trip, is an Expedition Leader and Guide on many Antarctic and Artic trips. He is also a kite surfer. He once had the chance to kite surf in Stanley Harbor during a one day visit to town with passengers, but dreamed of returning with more days to kite surf around these islands. While the wind in the Falklands can be cold and frustrating to some – it’s a kite surfers dream, as is the topography – well suited for constant winds, plus the sandy beaches and blue waters that often allure us into thinking it’s the Caribbean, make a good launch point for the kiters.
Meanwhile, Fede had been looking at possibilities for cool tours around the Islands and he had also thought about kite surfing. He had started to try to make a few contacts and things were proceeding but a bit slowly.
On June 16th Pablo and Fede (and myself, Pablo’s partner Mariela, Mariela’s mom, and their friend Charlie) all met on a beach in Ushuaia in order to clean up the beach in honor of a mutual friend Sarah Auffret. Sarah had worked at Port Lockory, had been a polar guide and most recently worked with AECO on the clean seas project. A friend to many many in the polar industry, she was unfortunately on the fatal Ethiopian Airlines crash that went down in March 2019. She touched thousands through her dedication and sincere friendship, and her ability to live out her life choices in line with the causes she espoused. To celebrate her life, her friends all over the world gathered on beaches over 100 beaches to clean them up on her birthday. Thus Pablo and Fede met together on the beach in June and from that meeting, the seed for this trip was borne.
This trip has indeed been about exploration. We’ve visited islands and beaches we never would have stopped at otherwise. At those places we found cool penguin colonies, amazing beaches, little visited coves. But the trip was about more than just exploration. It was about seeing the amazing wildlife, about being disconnected from technology, about growing new friendships and soaking in the beauty of the place.
What did we do this week? We kite surfed in Ships Harbor, had an AMAZING morning on the Neck at Saunders Island where we saw King Penguins, Gentoos, Magellanic, and Rock Hopper penguins, along with black browed albatross. We anchored in and/or explored Penarrow Point and near Cliff Point, we had a glorious morning at West Point watching Albatross soar and two birds that seemed quite in love – preening and displaying. We visited Carcass Island for an excellent chat and walk along the beach and Low Island across the way. We returned to Pebble and walked along one of the longest white sand beaches in the islands… the first day there wasn’t enough wind so we could only drool.
However mis-fortune turned to fortune. The weekly plane got delayed by a day and the wind decided to come. So the day when everyone should have been on their way home…. They got to kite surf in what is a near perfect kite surfing beach – and that was just the morning! In the afternoon it was some inter island kite surfing.
While we didn’t have as much wind as predicted – we did what we came here for, to explore for future kite surfing trips, to learn about how to kite safely in this area and start establishing new friendships and growing old ones with locals who have helped us during this week.
So as one quote goes – fare thee forward… And hopefully this is just the start of future amazing kiting trips onboard the Hans Hansson.
– Laura
