It was middle of March last year and we had just climbed Cape Horn. We were considering ourselves very fortunate to be at the tip of South America when all Europe was closing down and fear was rising at home.
Sailing towards Punta Arenas in southern Chile the next day, news came that the port was refusing entry to all.
We cruised up and down the Strait of Magellan while the captain attempted to persuade the authorities to let us dock. He failed. Then, as alternative ports were being considered, he discovered that South America was rapidly closing to all sea traffic.
So, we were stuck on a small cruise ship in the South Atlantic with 80 other passengers, nearly all Brits, with nowhere to go. We were less than half way through our Patagonian itinerary.
At the evening briefing, the cruise director said London head office was looking at options.
Perhaps, it was said, we could sail to the UK with a refuelling and reprovisioning stop in Cape Verde. It would take three weeks if the weather was favourable. And it would get progressively warmer so it wouldn’t be totally unpleasant it we didn’t mind the extended trip.
There was surprisingly little alarm on board. Passengers who had flown out independently of the cruise company, like us, knew we would not make our return flights from Santiago de Chile. But where would we land and how could we get home?
And that, reader, is how, to my great surprise, I ended up in the Falklands.
As we tossed around the South Atlantic and passed Cape Horn again, the captain said he would take a chance and hope these much fought-over British islands might let us in. The cruise company was British, he said. Yes, indeed, said many guests, look what we did for them. There was even a Falklands veteran among the expeditionary crew on board.
It would take over two days of sailing but Falklands-bound we were and full of hope that they would remember the 1982 war and welcome us in. For the first time ever I was pleased the Falklands were not the Malvinas.
On arrival we were diverted into Choiseul Sound, not far, relatively speaking from Goose Green, the site of the air sea battle, and there we stayed for five days. There were two other boats also waiting and hoping and we watched them carefully for signs of movement.
We were not allowed ashore unless and until a plane came to collect us.
The fear of the virus had reached these remote islands.
There is little traffic in and out of the Falklands apart from the weekly military flight so arrangements were under way for a charter to take us home. One boat did get to dock ahead of us but the passengers had been on an expedition to the Antarctic and were considered uncontaminated.
Life on board was pleasant. Too cold to sit out but not for tai chi on deck and lectures on relevant topics in the lounge. All drink bills were cancelled to soften the burden of looking at the same barren coastline every day. There were quiz nights and dance nights and one crew member had made a film of his trip to reenact Shackleton’s voyage, with the same boats, clothes, equipment and even food. We saw it over four nights and it make us very thankful for our comfortable situation. We reported to the on-board doctor for a temperature test every day and everybody passed.
But best of all was the St Patrick’s Day party for which I take total credit.
Was it the only one in the world? We didn’t think so at the time, but when we realised later the devastation Covid was causing everywhere in those early days, we think maybe it was.
Guinness and Irish whiskey and green bunting were in place and everyone partook. A great success.
Everyone asks what the Falklands were like but our view was very fleeting. As we sailed in to Port Stanley it looked bleak; cold, windswept, empty of people, low lying and small with clapboard houses and little vegetation.
Once ashore we boarded buses for RAF Mount Pleasant where our special plane awaited. Looking out the window we could have been on the top of the Wicklow Mountains. Treeless and barren with a few sheep and only the odd house.
But there were the war memorials. Stone monuments whose inscriptions we couldn’t read as the plane sped past. A reminder of the lives lost fighting for this desolate place.