At sea from the Falkland Islands to South Georgia Island
It is our second day at sea on our way to South Georgia from the Falkland Islands. We are experiencing a relatively moderate sea with the swell and the sea from behind us giving us a bit of a push. The sea birds, albatross and petrels, are enjoying themselves and throughout the day there are whale blows here and there. Our schedule is peppered with lectures on wildlife and workshops on writing and photography, as most of us are anticipating our upcoming days in the wilderness of South Georgia. And like most explorers and adventurers we have also anticipated our needs for fresh vegetables for our long journey. It is said that Napoleon died at the island of Saint Helena, not from arsenic poisoning, but from stomach cancer he developed from long military campaigns with a dearth of fruit and vegetables!
We stocked up on fresh produce from a most surprising source, a hydroponics farm, Stanley Growers, at the Falkland Islands. It is a most wonderful place to explore, which many of us did, greenhouses with lush rows of vegetables: lettuce, egg plants, cucumber, sweet peppers, hot peppers and 30 foot long tomato vines! Surprising because these cool, windswept, rocky islands do not support any native trees. Surprising because the heat to nurture these verdant crops is supplied by burning recycled waste oil from passing ships like the National Geographic Endeavour. Surprising because there are no pollinating bees here, which is only a problem for the tomato flowers, a problem solved by gently tapping each flower to encourage them to drop their pollen. Surprising because they fight pests with imported, ‘safe’ biological control agents.
OK, maybe not as rough and ready as those expeditions during the age of heroic exploration in the Antarctic by the likes of Shakleton and Scott, but I think even they would have fancied the occasional green salad made with succulent leaves of butterleaf lettuce, fresh from the Falkland Islands! Just amazing!!
It is our second day at sea on our way to South Georgia from the Falkland Islands. We are experiencing a relatively moderate sea with the swell and the sea from behind us giving us a bit of a push. The sea birds, albatross and petrels, are enjoying themselves and throughout the day there are whale blows here and there. Our schedule is peppered with lectures on wildlife and workshops on writing and photography, as most of us are anticipating our upcoming days in the wilderness of South Georgia. And like most explorers and adventurers we have also anticipated our needs for fresh vegetables for our long journey. It is said that Napoleon died at the island of Saint Helena, not from arsenic poisoning, but from stomach cancer he developed from long military campaigns with a dearth of fruit and vegetables!
We stocked up on fresh produce from a most surprising source, a hydroponics farm, Stanley Growers, at the Falkland Islands. It is a most wonderful place to explore, which many of us did, greenhouses with lush rows of vegetables: lettuce, egg plants, cucumber, sweet peppers, hot peppers and 30 foot long tomato vines! Surprising because these cool, windswept, rocky islands do not support any native trees. Surprising because the heat to nurture these verdant crops is supplied by burning recycled waste oil from passing ships like the National Geographic Endeavour. Surprising because there are no pollinating bees here, which is only a problem for the tomato flowers, a problem solved by gently tapping each flower to encourage them to drop their pollen. Surprising because they fight pests with imported, ‘safe’ biological control agents.
OK, maybe not as rough and ready as those expeditions during the age of heroic exploration in the Antarctic by the likes of Shakleton and Scott, but I think even they would have fancied the occasional green salad made with succulent leaves of butterleaf lettuce, fresh from the Falkland Islands! Just amazing!!
