The election continues. A queue to vote – you don’t often see that in the UK. Lots of journalists including South American ones, shivering in the cold. A Colombian female journalist needed more layers and confided in me that this was not like S America at all. Too cold, windswept and ‘British’.
The hail returned…

Oh how Stanley has changed. Supermarkets off the bypass (under construction when I was here last). More cars than before and busy. New houses aplenty, but enough of the weather distressed wriggly tin roofed wooden houses still stand.
Playgrounds full of kids on play boats, swings and slides.

The red, white and the blue. Election fever has struck Stanley. Cars are festooned with union flags and the Falklands standard. Flags hang from every lamppost along the waterfront, stream from cranes and fill shop windows. I deeply suspect that the result will be a Yes to continue with the UK.

Landing in the cloud. Good landings are those when you can walk away and use the plane again afterwards. That was a good landing.
Into a minibus after my luggage was the last off the carousel – last by a long time. Minibus in the rain to Stanley jammed in with journalists from NBC and the Telegraph– there were others too, but sardines can’t move to look around.
The Malvina hotel has changed and grown. Most stopped there.

My abode, just off Dean Street was welcoming and cosy.
Set up computers and wifi and I now realise how limiting a capped bandwidth is. The Gold Account is 3.2GB per month. Facetime would eat that up in a moment.
I did however find out that there is free bandwidth with no limit from midnight to 6am. This blog will therefore be uploaded after midnight.

Thu 7th March 2013
Good flight from Ascension, but the usual 3 hour arrival before the flight – so that the 2 passengers could be processed.
On plane, watched ParaNorman, (fun and I laughed out loud), The Expendables 2 (a waste of time), and Premium Rush – really really good
And all watched on a complimentary loan of an ipad. Clever app; only worked when headphones plugged into ipad. Great screen, able to place ipad for best viewing angle. This is the future

Wed 6th March 2013

Well, up at 06.00 and off to Long Beach once I could see my hand in front of my face.

Lots of photos of turtles heading back to the ocean having laid their eggs in the night.

Tuesday 5th March 2013

helpful policeman showed me where the turtles nest near the pier. So down there after dark. Amazing. An enormous green turtle heading into the soft sand to lay her eggs. No photo though, as camera fooled by darkness and flashgun would be so antisocial for a lady about to give birth.

Crayfish for dinner – who said that there were only 3 items on the menu and that they repeated after 3 days?

Photo to follow once I leave this awful bandwidth and internet access lockdown behind. I mean, this island is totally dedicated to SigInt. More aerials and dishes than you could easily count. Yet for the princely sum of £10 you can have 24 hour access on one machine only for the duration of the 24 hours at the blisteringly fast speed of 0.44mbps. Now by my maths that works out at 30 times more expensive than my broadband at home and .. and this is a big AND .. 30 times slower.

As they say, go figure (the answer is Cable & Wireless)

PS apologies for the date at the top of the post being different from the date I am writing about .. I’m sure that I will figure this out .. as they say, RTFM

Red-eye to Ascension Island from Brize Norton. Aircraft an Airbus 330-200. Not crowded so those behind row 4 could have 2 seats each. A better arrangement than 1 per larger seat,with more legroom up front. This VIP seating still far short of business in KLM and there is no little Dutch house full of Jenever either.

A bit of turbulence – enough to have the seat belt signs on and off the whole flight. Mind you, we were over the English Channel before the takeoff seatbelt sign was extinguished accompanied by the usual code of bings and bongs. It can’t be anything to do with safety surely? After all, we had been at cruising altitude for ages. Perhaps it kept the passengers in their seats for longer while the crew handed out iPads as flight entertainment. No instruction leaflets ….. Interesting.

Ascension – a volcanic lump of rock in the Atlantic about 500 miles from anywhere. Claimed by the Crown in 1815 and strategically important on and off since then– balmy and a comfortable 24– 30 deg the year around. Comfortable that is if you are acclimatised and not just landed from freezing UK on the way to the cool and wind caressed Falkland Islands. That is not to say it is not windy here. The frigate birds riding the wind are a testament to that. It is not the icy draft down the back of the neck that makes you shiver, but the gusts of hot air – someone has opened the oven door again.

Off on a long trip south, beginning on Sunday 3 March. It’s been a long time since I was there last in 1998.  Lots had changed then since I was there 5 years before; wheelie bins, home grown fruit and exotic veggies