Unlikely as it might sound, for about 4 hours yesterday, I could imagine wanting to move to Stanley, capital of the Falkland Islands. When we woke up, shortly before dawn, we were anchored in a quiet bay.

Gaby announced over the loudspeaker that our mystery patient had safely gotten off the ship the night before. The rest of us would have a full day to explore Stanley. When Steve and I stepped into a Zodiac shortly after breakfast, the nearby town gleamed in bright sunlight and everyone on the shuttle was giddy with excitement.

Walking along the waterfront I drank in lots of color…

…on the rooftops and in the gardens.

The impressive Anglican cathedral sits next to a striking arch made of blue-whale jaw bones.

A turkey vulture preened on a branch of one of the few local trees.

Clouds reflected on the surface of the harbor.

I would have happily sat on one of the war-memorial benches and basked in the sun.

Instead we boarded a bus that drove us for about 15 minutes to Gypsy Cove. There we chatted with a local guy who had worked on removing the hundreds of land mines planted by the Argentines during their 1982 invasion and ill-fated conquest attempt. Keith was confident the beach was now safe, but Gaby seemed more dubious.

So instead of descending to the sugary sand, we hiked along a path that took us through a Magellanic penguin nesting grounds.

We spotted two of them, our first of the trip. Other avian sitings included…

…a perky little astral thrush…

… and some of the island’s geese.

Native diddle-dee berries also caught my eye.

Sadly, a damp fog began to move in as we re-boarded the bus. This made the sight of the local shipwrecks more atmospheric.

But it didn’t take long for a thick cloud cover to erase any memory of the sun. As the wind picked up and the temperature dropped, it was a reality check on what it would be like to live here most of the time.

I still enjoyed the afternoon. Steve and I ate fish and chips in a cozy local pub. We checked out the grocery store and the post office.

We also spent more than an hour in the town’s museum, which included a solid, sobering capsule history of the 1982 Falklands War.

After that I still had time to pop into a local hair salon and get my color touched up.

Gift shops were the remaining local attraction, and we checked out a few. I can confirm that the plush penguin options are exceptional.

But I restrained myself from buying one, or from jumping ship to start looking for a pied à terre. At the evening briefing, Gaby said we would next be sailing to the world’s largest colony of nesting black-browed albatrosses. I’ll report in my next post how that worked out.