So last night we were expecting a big storm over the Falkland Islands with over 60 knots of wind. This is not unusual in the Falklands we tend to have windy weather and these storms from time to time. The usual trepidation occurs which for me is will one of the trees on my property fall on me and take me out or have I weighted down those construction materials enough. Only time will tell.
At about 10:30pm we get a text from a neighbor saying an overhead electrical cable has been tore down outside our house. There are showers of sparks covering the house next door and coming into our yard. So we start dressing for the outdoors and as we’re putting on storm gear, the lights flicker and then go out. We arm ourselves with torches and head out into the storm to find the fire chief and the electrical department outside already. The power has been cut off to our block to prevent further danger and damage until the next morning when the cable could be repaired.
Fair enough we head back inside and prepare for a chilly night without heating. However this wouldn’t be the last issue from the storm. The next morning we got up and headed to work. I was supposed to be welding with my dad that morning but I arrived at work to find no sign of him. Having no power meant I had no internet either so I assumed I must have missed his message. Couldn’t get hold of him but eventually got hold of mum who explained he had got concerned about our boat in the night with the high winds. My parent’s boat is moored in the south of East Falklands when they are in town. Which is over 4 hours drive from Stanley by tarmac road, then clay road and then off road when you eventually get to Flores Harbour. anyway he had checked the AIS in the night and saw the boat was dragging her moorings in over 70 knot winds. He immediately started the long drive out to save her, making slow progress as the roads were icy, it was still dark and a snow storm persisted most of the way.
Thankfully by the time I had found out he had gone he popped up on Facebook as he’d just for the boat started ( The Star) and got the Starlink powered up. By the time he had got there she was hanging about 40 metres of the beach and jogged her into the wind until it calmed down. We came up with a plan for me to come out the next day with parts to reset the moorings.
After a quick breakfast where I found have the town had been disconnected from the power that morning then came my first problem. I returned home and the house had dropped to about 9C. At this point my fish had been without air and heat for approximately 10 hours at this point. Luckily I chose most of my aquarium fish for their tolerance as my partner is just learning how to care for them when I’m gone so I knew they could hang on so long. Also as water gets cooler the oxygen saturation improves and the fish metabolism slows using less oxygen but they can still die if cooled too fast and for too long as some of my fish are temperate/tropical. By 10am they were starting to look a bit sleepy so I went and grabbed the small generator from dad’s. It’s quite heavy but I managed to heft it into a wheel barrow and scurried it away to my place with about two litres of petrol. By 11 I had a night little set up going of extension cables from the generator on the front steps to the fish tank and the Starlink. The fish were perking up nicely. All was going well apart from a severe leak from the carburetor on the generator which dad had informed I just needed to “bang it until it stops”. Then came the next problem, I was running out of fuel.
No problem, I’ll run by the fuel station. So I head over there and after finally finding the right pump (there’s new ones being installed) I found out it was empty. The station was unable to sell petrol that morning. So after that I was a bit frustrated but hoped the 30 minutes I had managed to run the generator may have been enough to keep them going. The government had put out a statement saying we should get power back at 12 so it wasn’t much longer to wait. On the way back I popped into mums to thaw out and happened to spot a petrol can in the yard. So I borrowed that and had my little setup up and running by the time Fernando came home from work. He was quite impressed that with my little setup but at that moment another problem started. The generator started stalling!
After lots of trial and error it appeared there must of been water in the fuel. I had not checked for condensation in my haste 🙄. After what felt like too long screwing around with it in the snow eventually the water cleared and the generator started to run well again. 12 had come and gone with no power but Fernando had spotted our hero’s the electrical guys on the lamppost on our block so the end was in sight. At around two the lights finally came on and I was able to dismantle my little doomsday set up. Then I started dealing with small problems such as the Starlink and the thermostat were playing up. Then I decided I would pop out for coffee while I waited for heating to kick in.
An hour later I came back to find the house still freezing and realised that something was wrong. The thermostat kept switching itself off and the heat link wasn’t responding and appeared to be without power. I was going to have to get someone to look at it later on.
Meanwhile I needed to collect granddads landcruiser to head out tomorrow. Grandads landcruiser is a beast and feels like driving a monster truck around as it’s lifted. First I had to refuel the beast which of course as the rest of the day that could not be easy. The button to open the fuel cap door wouldn’t work no matter how hard I pulled it. Cousin Callum happened to be at the fuel station too so he had a go and as well. Eventually we had to prize it open as nothing we did would make the catch let go. Also at this point my patience has worn thin. So any truck is fuelled all spare parts collected so now the only problem is why do I still have no heating?!
Luckily I am blessed with a plethora of handy family members and Callum came to my rescue again. Which was lucky because at this point I was pretty annoyed with the world and was considering setting light to the last of my precious petrol on a bush in the garden for warmth (joking of course). Anyway Callum takes a look and sadly looks like the power surge the night before killed the heat link which allows the thermostat to control the boiler so I need a new one. So that’s a problem for tomorrow, for now he bypassed it so we have hot water and heating for the night.
Fernando arrived blissfully unaware of the drama of the day after a day at work. Poor dad has been on the boat all day making sure it doesn’t drift away. The fish are defrosted and thriving. I also managed to harvest all my onions and garlic in the middle of the chaos. Thank god the day was over and ended with a lovely visit from our friend. Hopefully tomorrow is slightly less dramatic. I’ll head out at 6 tomorrow to help dad settle the boat back in.
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