The Traveling Islander

So as I mentioned in my last post I am from the Falkland Islands. Many of you may never of heard of it unless you were old enough to remember the war of 1982 or you happened to pass through on your way to Antarctica.
We are a small archipelago of 778 islands off the east coast of South America. We are a British Overseas Territory with a population that dates back almost 200 years. My family has resided there since the beginning with myself being an 7/8th generation Falkland Islander (depending who’s family tree you follow). My family is descended from Norwegian and German sailors who were stranded on the islands for one reason or another and of British who chose to settle. I won’t get too much into the politics too much as its a still a touchy subject.

My family in particular live on a small group of islands in the south of the Falklands. My parents own Speedwell Island group and have run it as a sheep farm for over 15 years at this time. When i was younger just my parents my brother and me lived there but nowadays just my parents live on these islands running a low intensity sheep flock with the main purpose of producing Merino wool. They travel between the islands on their own small 37 foot boat and move from island to island as the work requires.

Something you may have heard about the Falklands if you have heard about us at all is the amazing wildlife. We are home to over 220 species of bird including 5 different species of penguin. Most know us for the penguins. 1000’s of tourists come via cruise ship every year to see our penguins and other wildlife. Some land based tourists also come as we have beautiful white sandy beaches and an interesting lifestyle that comes from be quite cut off from the rest of the world.

For example we only have one ship bringing in supplies once a month from Uruguay so people here have to be quite self sufficient often growing their own vegetables. We only have one flight to South America every Saturday and two flights a week to the UK which can make travel difficult especially during certain seasons. Sometimes the flights are booked up several months in advance.

We have poor internet quality provided by satellite which only works at a maximum of 10mbps upload and is very expensive. Though it has improved in recent years, streaming is still hit and miss. When new people come to the islands this is often one of the things that surprises them and they find the most difficult to adjust to. We are a close community, that generally takes care of each other. New people arrive all the time due to having more jobs than people and a lot decide to stay and make their life here. We currently have a population of over 3600 which is growing slowly.

I will talk more in depth about some of these things in later blogs but i will leave this here for today. Hope you are enjoying the blog. If you have any questions about life in the Falklands feel free to ask in the comments and I will try and cover it.

Goodbye for now!