This morning we put ashore in Stanley, the capital of the Falkland Islands, where approximately 3,000 citizens reside, accounting for nearly 80% of the territory’s population. The image above is a panorama of the waterfront and is best viewed by clicking on it and then zooming in.

Christ Church Cathedral is the southernmost Anglican cathedral in the world. Adjacent to the cathedral is the Whalebone Arch, constructed in 1933 from the jawbones of two blue whales to commemorate the centenary of continuous British administration in the Falklands.

We also visited the Falkland Islands Museum and National Trust, which provides a comprehensive overview of the area’s history, climate, geology, and wildlife. It also provides a full account of a 74-day undeclared conflict between Argentina and the United Kingdom in 1982 over the sovereignty of the Falkland Islands (Spanish: Islas Malvinas), South Georgia, and the South Sandwich Islands. It was moving to see how many places in the Falklands are now named after fallen soldiers from the conflict.

When we returned to our ship just before lunch, we noticed that the chairs on our balcony had been lashed to the railing. This does not bode well for our next open-water crossing, since this precaution was not deemed necessary on our last crossing, which was rough enough to render the vast majority of passengers extremely seasick.