Part I: Seals teeth and whales ears - Scott Polar Research Institute ...

assorted crowd aboard and I wondered how they were going to settle down in
the islands.
I had had a very lazy time since leaving England; it seemed much more
than a month. In Stanley I worked sporadically; the usual daily programme
was: breakfast 9 - 9.30 am; 'smokoe' (i.e. morning coffee) 11.00 – 11.30; lunch
l2.30. Riding 2 - 5 pm.; dinner 6.30 and/or 8.30 (we often had two dinners!) In
the evening there was frequently a cocktail party to attend (which sometimes
continued until 3 a.m.!) or we played Mah Jong or canasta - other times I
worked. It was good to see all my Falklands friends again - people were much
more hospitable in the islands than at home. Occasionally I helped Don Clarke,
Manager of the Falkland Islands Store, with his vegetable garden or watched a
football match. I enjoyed the riding very much - often borrowing one of the
government horses called Bobby, or Rex which belonged to friends. It's pretty
rough country and one easily gets thrown. The saddles were different from the
English ones and all the gear had Spanish (Gaucho) names. Usually I went
riding with Marjorie Clarke, who now owned two horses, Gilpin and Rose. I
had also been doing some shooting (.22.calibre) and fishing - catching three
brown trout one day.
When I eventually got out to Albemarle I expected to travel around the
islands in a small wooden vessel, the Protector and hoped to get down to
Beauchêne Island which is the most southerly of the group. It is a small island
with terrific tide rips and heavy surf and – it was said – no one had landed on it
for over 50 years. It lies about l00 miles south east. I hoped to get in a good
deal of riding in the camp because that was one of the best ways (next to boat
or plane) of getting about and was not subject to bad weather as the others
were. All distances tended to be reckoned in hours riding !
One Sunday night we went out to a small place called the ‘Mons Star’ hotel
(which I’ve mentioned before); it was little more than a wooden shack on the
shore of Rookery Bay some miles out of Stanley. One of the locals was
throwing a party and invited some of us along. We went part way in a lorry,
which kept breaking down and in the end we walked the last mile or so. It was
quite a good party - accordions and guitars were played and we drank and
danced and sang - a typical small party in the islands (as given by the 'kelpers' -
that is Falkland Islanders as opposed to UK expatriates.)
Three ships came in while I was there in Stanley- the ‘Biscoe’, the ‘Fitzroy’
and a Dutch boat whose name I forget (Monsunen perhaps) - all were excuses
for parties or dances. The ‘Fitzroy’ came into harbour again on 10 January, after
making a camp trip and would take the mail out. I could not expect to leave the
Falkland Islands until the end of February when the Governor (or HE - His
Excellency, as he was known formally) was to make his annual trip to South
Georgia and the other bases. This would further erode the time I had for
research at South Georgia, already reduced due to an unfortunate hassle over
my salary, so I wasn’t very happy about the delay.
I had anticipated quite a stormy interview with the Governor, because I
had achieved the increase in my salary, but we had a friendly talk and I told
him about the new discoveries I had made about elephant seals and their
management, when working in Cambridge; he was very interested. Then, as I
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